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The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is unique in translating fundamental scientific discoveries into scalable technology adoption. Our approach combines an understanding of the marketplace and the role of state and federal regulation and policies. ETA's research drives real-world, practical results that affect and improve the everyday lives of Americans and those across the globe. Saving energy and increasing reliability are key to the foundation of our research, which is driven by techno-economic analysis and in-lab experimentation and discovery.

Size-dependent polar ordering in colloidal GeTe nanocrystals

Publication Type

Journal Article

Authors

Polking, M.J, J.J Urban, D.J Milliron, H Zheng, E Chan, M.A Caldwell, S Raoux, C.F Kisielowski, Joel W Ager, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, A Paul Alivisatos

DOI

10.1021/nl104075v

Abstract

The question of the nature and stability of polar ordering in nanoscale ferroelectrics is examined with colloidal nanocrystals of germanium telluride (GeTe). We provide atomic-scale evidence for room-temperature polar ordering in individual nanocrystals using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy and demonstrate a reversible, size-dependent polar-nonpolar phase transition of displacive character in nanocrystal ensembles. A substantial linear component of the distortion is observed, which is in contrast with theoretical reports predicting a toroidal state. © 2011 American Chemical Society.

Journal

Nano Letters

Volume

Year of Publication

2011

ISSN

15306984

Notes

cited By 65

Organization

No Organization

Research Areas

Ramesh Lab