In situ TEM measurement of electrical properties of individual BaTiO3 nanocubes.

We report on the measurement of the electrical properties of individual pristine and doped BaTiO₃ nanocubes by using in situ transmission electron microscopy with a two-electrode configuration. The dimensions of the nanocubes tested are between 10 and 20 nm, which rendered their in situ electrical characterization challenging. We characterized 4%Cr and 5%La (atomic percentage) doped BaTiO₃ nanocubes and compared them with the properties of pristine BaTiO₃ nanocubes synthesized by the same solvothermal method. We found that the resistance of all three types of nanocubes when displayed in log-scale shows a nearly linear dependence on the applied electric field (R² ≥ 0.95) over a wide range of electric fields (50–900 kV/cm). Compared with pristine BaTiO₃ nanocubes, the resistance of both 4%Cr and 5%La doped nanocubes showed reduced variation rates with respect to the electric field, with 5%La doping, demonstrating a better reduction in the variation rate. By developing techniques capable of evaluating the properties of individual BaTiO₃ nanocubes, we expect that our work to open the door to the use of BaTiO₃ nanomaterials in the design of future multilayer ceramic capacitors with improved volumetric efficiency and ferroelectrics-enabled nanodevices with advanced functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]