Ferroelectric domain of epitaxial AgNbO3 thin film

• Epitaxial AgNbO3 thin film showed high remnant polarization at room temperature.
• Triangular grain and mosaic-like ferroelectric domain structure were observed respectively.
• Domain wall energy is discussed based on the LLK scaling law.

We investigated ferroelectric properties of silver niobate (AgNbO3) thin film grown on Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrate by pulsed laser deposition. The AgNbO3 thin film exhibited room temperature ferroelectricity with a large remanent polarization of about 31 μC/cm2 (2Pr~62 μC/cm2) and fast switching behavior within 120 ns. Triangular grains of AgNbO3 thin film were observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM) study revealed that the AgNbO3 thin film had mosaic-like ferroelectric domain structure. In comparison with PbTiO3 thin films, domain size of the AgNbO3 thin films was smaller than that of PbTiO3 thin films. Based on Landau, Lifshitz, and Kittel (LLK) scaling law of the domain size versus film thickness curves, it is inferred that AgNbO3 thin films have slightly lower domain wall energy than that of PbTiO3 thin films.