Water absorbed on the surface of ferroelectric thin films can alter the properties of these materials, so it would be good if we could understand and better control the effect of such adsorbates. A team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Nebraska is now reporting on a new way to control the ferroelectric properties of barium titanium (BaTiO3) thin films by exposing them to water and inducing an effect called surface polarization pinning in the top few atomic layers of the material. The technique may be a simple, yet powerful strategy to improve the functional properties of ferroelectric films in general for use in applications such as non-volatile memory devices and tunnel junctions………..
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/64392
