Retention behavior of composites consisting of ferroelectric particles embedded in dielectric polymers

As ferroelectric ceramic/polymer composites may offer the possibility to lower the operating voltage of state of the art polymer ferroelectric memories, the retention behavior of these composites needs to be studied. This work presents for the first time the polarization decay of a ceramic/polymer composite memory and discusses some influencing parameters. The existence of a depolarization field in such particulate structures, which is responsible for the polarization loss is demonstrated by finite element simulations, and first theoretical predictions are generated how to reduce this depolarizing field. Interestingly, first results from the experimental approach of varying the ionic concentration in the surrounding medium of the particles contradict these theoretical assumptions. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4709747]