Differentiating Ferroelectric and Nonferroelectric Electromechanical Effects with Scanning Probe Microscopy

Nina Balke, Petro Maksymovych, Stephen Jesse, Andreas Herklotz, Alexander Tselev, Chang Beom Eom, Ivan I. Kravchenko, Pu Yu, Sergei V. Kalinin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

240 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ferroelectricity in functional materials remains one of the most fascinating areas of modern science in the past several decades. In the last several years, the rapid development of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and spectroscopy revealed the presence of electromechanical hysteresis loops and bias-induced remnant polar states in a broad variety of materials including many inorganic oxides, polymers, and biosystems. In many cases, this behavior was interpreted as the ample evidence for ferroelectric nature of the system. Here, we systematically analyze PFM responses on ferroelectric and nonferroelectric materials and demonstrate that mechanisms unrelated to ferroelectricity can induce ferroelectric-like characteristics through charge injection and electrostatic forces on the tip. We will focus on similarities and differences in various PFM measurement characteristics to provide an experimental guideline to differentiate between ferroelectric material properties and charge injection. In the end, we apply the developed measurement protocols to an unknown ferroelectric material.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6484-6492
Number of pages9
JournalACS Nano
Volume9
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 23 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • electrostatics
  • ferroelectricity
  • relaxors
  • scanning probe microscopy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Differentiating Ferroelectric and Nonferroelectric Electromechanical Effects with Scanning Probe Microscopy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this