A plausible heating in ferroelectric ultra-thin films during uniform polarization reversal

Abstract

We formulate the heat generated during the homogeneous polarization reversal at the coercive field of a ferroelectric thin film with a second-order transition. The developed formalism is applied to ultra-thin films, where ferroelectric polarization may exhibit a homogeneous reversal mechanism, as reported in recent studies. Heat involved in such a process, if contained within the film, causes a temperature increase similar to that following an exothermic reaction, namely, the flame temperature. It is analytically shown that this temperature change strongly depends on the initial temperature of the system and reaches a maximal value before the ferroelectric–paraelectric transition for a given compressive misfit strain.