Ferroelectricity at the nanoscale

The properties of ferroelectrics at the nanoscale are reviewed.The term nanoscale is here related to the ferroelectric film thickness (which is by an order of magnitude the size of the critical domain nucleus).The three aspects considered are ferroelectric switching, the scaling of the coercive field, and the bulk photovoltaic effect.While ferroelectricity at the nanoscale has a twenty-year history of study, it is only in the last few years that perovskite ferroelectric films have become a focus of interest.