Polarization reversal and memory effect in anti-ferroelectric materials

A solid-state memory effect is defined as the ability of a material to store information, and it requires at least two switchable memory states that can be addressed by an externally controlled parameter. In this article we present experimental evidence of a memory effect in anti-ferroelectric Pb_0.99Nb_0.02[(Zr_0.57Sn_0.43)_0.94Ti_0.06]_0.98O₃ polycrystalline ceramic materials. This study indicates that anti-ferroelectrics encode data in their ferroelectric sublattices, resulting in a 4-state memory capable of storing 2 digital bits simultaneously. This result opens up the possibility of realizing non-volatile anti-ferroelectric random access memory, as well as other possible devices and logic applications based on anti-ferroelectric materials.