Electrostatically-blind quantitative piezoresponse force microscopy free of distributed-force artifacts

Jason P. Killgore, Larry Robins, Liam Collins

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The presence of electrostatic forces and associated artifacts complicates the interpretation of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and electrochemical strain microscopy (ESM). Eliminating these artifacts provides an opportunity for precisely mapping domain wall structures and dynamics, accurately quantifying local piezoelectric coupling coefficients, and reliably investigating hysteretic processes at the single nanometer scale to determine properties and mechanisms which underly important applications including computing, batteries and biology. Here we exploit the existence of an electrostatic blind spot (ESBS) along the length of the cantilever, due to the distributed nature of the electrostatic force, which can be universally used to separate unwanted long range electrostatic contributions from short range electromechanical responses of interest. The results of ESBS-PFM are compared to state-of-the-art interferometric displacement sensing PFM, showing excellent agreement above their respective noise floors. Ultimately, ESBS-PFM allows for absolute quantification of piezoelectric coupling coefficients independent of probe, lab or experimental conditions. As such, we expect the widespread adoption of EBSB-PFM to be a paradigm shift in the quantification of nanoscale electromechanics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2036-2045
Number of pages10
JournalNanoscale Advances
Volume4
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 15 2022

Funding

We thank Karsten Buse and Ingo Breunig for the iron-dope lithium niobate sample and Michael Susner for the CIPS sample. Publication of NIST, an agency of the US government, not subject to copyright in the United States. Commercial equipment, instruments, or materials are identified only in order to adequately specify certain procedures. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the products identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose. Research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). Interferometric force microscopy research was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility. We thank Karsten Buse and Ingo Breunig for the iron-dope lithium niobate sample and Michael Susner for the CIPS sample. Publication of NIST, an agency of the US government, not subject to copyright in the United States. Commercial equipment, instruments, or materials are identified only in order to adequately specify certain procedures. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the products identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose. Research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Scientific User Facilities Division. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). Interferometric force microscopy research was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility.

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