Intrinsic dead layer effect and the performance of ferroelectric thin film capacitors

The boundary effects at the surface of a ferroelectric dielectric film is studied from a microscopic point of view, emphasizing the linear regime in which polarization is proportional to field. The formulation is based on the Thomas theory, on the basis that this is a fundamentally sound formulation of the ferroelectric problem. The formulation is used to check certain bulk properties, the Curie-Weiss law, and linearity of the soft mode frequency squared in (T-Tc).