Coherent Ferroelectric Switching by Atomic Force Microscopy

TL;DR

This paper uses energy surface analysis to comprehensively describe the stages of ferroelectric polarization switching induced by voltage-modulated AFM, including domain formation, growth, and expansion.

Contribution

It introduces a unified energy approach to analyze and explain all stages of AFM-induced ferroelectric switching in single crystals and thin films.

Findings

Successful description of domain formation and growth stages

Elucidation of domain contact instabilities near electrodes

Analysis of sidewise domain expansion in films

Abstract

General energy approaches have been applied to study the single-domain polarization reversal induced by the voltage-modulated Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) in ferroelectric single crystals and thin films. Topographic analysis of energy surfaces in the subspace of domain dimensions is performed, and energy evolutions under an external bias are elucidated. This has let to successfully describe all stages of the AFM switching, including formations of a reversed domain, its growth in a bulk, domain contact instabilities near an electrode, and pure sidewise expansions in a film.