Origin of the drain current bistability in polymer ferroelectric field-effect transistors

The authors present measurements that elucidate the mechanism behind the observed drain current bistability in ferroelectric field-effect transistors based on the ferroelectric polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) as the gate dielectric. Capacitance-voltage measurements on metal-insulator-semiconductor diodes demonstrate that the bistability originates from switching between two states in which the ferroelectric gate dielectric is either polarized or depolarized. Pulsed charge displacement measurements on these diodes enable a direct measurement of the accumulated charge in the polarized state of 40 +/- 3 mC/m(2). (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics