Engineering Commons^™

Growth And Characterization Of Molecular Ferroelectric Thin Films, Yifan Yuan

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Compared with inorganic ferroelectrics, organic ferroelectrics have advantages of low cost and low toxicity, are in increasing demand in capacitors, piezoelectric, and memory devices to reduce the environmental load. This work focuses on two types of organic molecular ferroelectric materials, croconic acid (CA) and 2-methylbenzimidazole (MBI). The work here introduces several origins of ferroelectricity in typical organics and their switching mechanism. We then investigated the nucleation, growth, and ferroelectric measurements of CA thin films. We explored the effect of substrate temperature and an external electric field on the nucleation and growth processes. The results can be used to improve the …