Demonstration of domain wall current in MgO-doped lithium niobate single crystals up to 400 °C

Conductive ferroelectric domain walls (DWs) represent a promising topical system for the development of nanoelectronic components and device sensors to be operational at elevated temperatures. DWs show very different properties as compared to their hosting bulk crystal, in particular with respect to the high local electrical conductivity. The objective of this work is to demonstrate DW conductivity up to temperatures as high as 400 °C which extends previous studies significantly. Experimental investigation of the DW conductivity of charged, inclined DWs is performed using 5 mol % MgO-doped lithium niobate single crystals. Current–voltage ($IV$  ) curves are determined by DC electrometer measurements and impedance spectroscopy and found to be identical. Moreover, impedance spectroscopy enables to recognize artifacts such as damaged electrodes. Temperature dependent measurements over repeated heating cycles reveal two distinct thermal activation energies for a given DW, with the higher of the activation energies only measured at higher temperatures. Depending on the specific sample, the higher activation energy is found above 160 °C to 230 °C. This suggests, in turn, that more than one type of defect/polaron is involved, and that the dominant transport mechanism changes with increasing temperature. First principles atomistic modeling suggests that the conductivity of inclined domain walls cannot be solely explained by the formation of a 2D carrier gas and must be supported by hopping processes. This holds true even at temperatures as high as 400 °C. Our investigations underline the potential to extend DW current based nanoelectronic and sensor applications even into the so-far unexplored temperature range up to 400 °C.