Lamellar ferroelectric domains in PbTiO3 grains imaged and manipulated by AFM

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy in combination with piezoresponse force microscopy are applied to inspect and manipulate the lamellar ferroelectric domains of a non-continuous polycrystalline PbTiO3 film. A former study showed such films to exhibit a net integral polarization direction with every grain being randomly oriented. However, the results presented here demonstrate a lamellar domain structure inside most of these single crystalline grains which is attributable to 90° domain walls. This lamellar domain distribution might be a result of mechanical strain at the surface and the interface to the substrate as predicted from theoretical calculations for epitaxially grown PbTiO3 films. In a switching experiment, the domains of a single grain were manipulated, showing that the lamellar structure recovers. This indicates that the lamellar domain arrangement is energetically favored in these samples.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)483-487
Number of pages5
JournalSurface science
Volume532-535
Publication statusPublished - 10 Jun 2003
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

TitleProceedings of the 7th International Conference on Nanometer
Duration29 - 31 August 2002
CityMalmo
CountrySweden

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-2484-4158/work/174788805

Keywords

Keywords

  • Atomic force microscopy, Grain boundaries, Polycrystalline thin films, Surface stress