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J. Varghese, S. Barth, L. Keeney, R. Whatmore, J. Holmes:
"Nanoscale Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Properties of Sb₂S₃ Nanowire Arrays";
Nano Letters, 12 (2012), 2; 868 - 872.

We report the first observation of piezoelectricity and ferroelectricity in individual Sb₂S₃ nanowires embedded in anodic alumina templates. Switching spectroscopy-piezoresponse force microscopy (SS-PFM) measurements demonstrate that individual, c-axis-oriented Sb₂S₃ nanowires exhibit ferroelectric as well as piezoelectric switching behavior. Sb₂S₃ nanowires with nominal diameters of 200 and 100 nm showed d33(eff) values around 2 pm V^-1, while the piezo coefficient obtained for 50 nm diameter nanowires was relatively low at around 0.8 pm V^-1. A spontaneous polarization (Ps) of approximately 1.8 μC cm^-2 was observed in the 200 and 100 nm Sb₂S₃ nanowires, which is a 100% enhancement when compared to bulk Sb₂S₃ and is probably due to the defect-free, single-crystalline nature of the nanowires synthesized. The 180° ferroelectric monodomains observed in Sb₂S₃ nanowires were due to uniform polarization alignment along the polar c-axis.

Nanowires; Sb2S3; template; piezoelectric; ferroelectric; PFM

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl2039106