Improved Thermal Stability of Ferroelectric Phase in Epitaxially Grown P(VDF-TrFE) Thin Films

In recent years ferroelectric polymers have attracted much attention due to their potentials in flexible electronics. To satisfy the requirements of low operation voltage and low power consumption, it is required to reduce the ferroelectric film thickness down to, for example, 100 nm. However, decreased film thickness results in low crystallinity and thus worse electrical performance. One possible solution is to realize the epitaxial growth of ferroelectric thin films via effective control of structure and orientation of ferroelectric crystals. Here we report our work on poly(tetrafluoroethylene)-template-induced ordered growth of ferroelectric thin films. We focus on the study of thermal stability of ferroelectric phase in these ferroelectric films. Our work indicates that epitaxial growth effectively increases the crystallinity and the melting and ferroelectric phase transition temperatures and implies the extended application of ferroelectric devices at higher temperature.