Publication Type
Journal
Journal Name
Microscopy Today
Publication Date
Page Number
28
Volume
N/A
Issue
1
Abstract
Coupling between electrical and mechanical phenomena is
extremely common in inorganic materials, and nearly ubiquitous
in biological systems, underpinning phenomena and devices
ranging from SONAR to cardiac activity and hearing. This paper
briefly summarizes the Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) approach,
referred to as Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM),
for probing electromechanical coupling on the nanometer scales,
and delineates some existing and emerging applications to probe
local structure and functionality in inorganic ferroelectrics, calcified
and connective tissues, and complex biosystems based on
electromechanical detection.
