A Decade of Piezoresponse Force Microscopy: Progress, Challenges and Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper reviews a decade of progress in Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM), highlighting recent advances, applications in ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials, and future challenges and opportunities in nanoscale electromechanical imaging.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of PFM principles, recent technological developments, and potential future directions in nanoscale electromechanical characterization.

Findings

Advances in vector and frequency-dependent PFM imaging techniques.

Successful application of PFM to ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials.

Identification of future challenges and opportunities in PFM development.

Abstract

Coupling between electrical and mechanical phenomena is a near-universal characteristic of inorganic and biological systems alike, with examples ranging from ferroelectric perovskites to electromotor proteins in cellular membranes. Understanding electromechanical functionality in materials such as ferroelectric nanocrystals, thin films, relaxor ferroelectrics, and biosystems requires probing these properties on the nanometer level of individual grain, domain, or protein fibril. In the last decade, Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM) was established a powerful tool for nanoscale imaging, spectroscopy, and manipulation of ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials. Here, we present principles and recent advances in PFM, including vector and frequency dependent imaging of piezoelectric materials, briefly review applications for ferroelectric materials, discuss prospects for electromechanical imaging of local crystallographic and molecular orientations and disorder, and summarize future challenges and opportunities for PFM emerging in the second decade since its invention.