Homogeneous switching mechanism in pure polyvinylidene fluoride ultrathin films

Polarization switching kinetics is one of the key issues for future development of nanoelectronic devices based on ferroelectrics. Up to now, such kinetics still remains poorly studied despite its crucial impact on the device performances. Here, the switching mechanism in 11-nm-thick ferroelectric films of pure homopolymer of polyvinylidene fluoride is investigated. While the usual mechanism involves nucleation and growth of domains, a homogeneous ferroelectric switching is evidenced in such ultrathin films. Indeed, the dependence of the switching rate on applied voltage reveals a critical behavior with the existence of a true threshold field (of ∼0.26 GV/m) which is required to overcome the energy barrier to reverse the whole polarization homogeneously as suggested by Landau-Ginzburg mean-field theory. Such finding not only supports few previous works but also raises the question on the general aspect of such homogeneous mechanism that might exist in any other nanoscale ferroelectric materials.