Flexible ferroelectric Pb(Zr_0.53Ti_0.47)O₃ epitaxial films with large radiation and high-temperature tolerance

Radiation and temperature hardness are important for electronic devices operating in harsh environments such as modern medical equipment, outer space, and nuclear energy industries. In this work, we report radiation and temperature-hardened flexible ferroelectric Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 epitaxial films that were grown on flexible inorganic mica substrates via van der Waals heteroepitaxy and can be further used for building high-performance electronic devices. We systematically investigated the effect of 60Co-gamma radiation and temperature on the ferroelectric properties of Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 films and their flexibility as well. Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 films exhibit a radiation and temperature tolerance of up to 20 Mrad and 175 °C, respectively. In particular, the 20 Mrad-irradiated Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 film has an excellent retention even after 105 s with extrapolate retention time longer than 10 years and polarization fatigue up to 1010 cycles as well as moderate flexibility and bending stability after bending 105 cycles. Furthermore, we identified that the degradation of macroscopic ferroelectric properties of irradiated Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 films originates from the ferroelectric domain pinning effect induced by the ionization effect. Our work demonstrates that flexible ferroelectric Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 films are promising for developing novel flexible electronic devices for applications in harsh environments.