- Materials
- Materials Characterization
Recent developments in piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and spectroscopy revealed the presence of electromechanical hysteresis loops in a variety of materials including inorganic oxides, polymers and bio systems. This behavior is often (mis)interpreted as evidence of ferroelectricity. The present work demonstrates that similar signals may result from different sources and provides experimental guidelines that clarify signal origins. This advance may inform design of future functional materials for insulators, metals, magnets, superconductors and more.
The present work demonstrates that similar signals may result from tip–sample electrostatic forces, rather than piezoelectricity. These studies establish the opportunities and limitations of PFM in probing ferroelectricity, allowing for future research of these functional materials. The work also opens new pathways for probing other electromechanical phenomena on the nanoscale which have not been studied before, such as charge trapping and properties of dielectric materials.
N. Balke, P. Maksymovych, S. Jesse, A. Herklotz, A. Tselev, C.-B. Eom, I. I. Kravchenko, P. Yu, and S. V. Kalinin, “Differentiating Ferroelectric and Nonferroelectric Electromechanical Effects with Scanning Probe Microscopy,” ACS Nano 9, 6484–6492 (2015). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b02227
