Differentiating Ferroelectric and Nonferroelectric Electromechanical Effects with Scanning Probe Microscopy. Balke, N., Maksymovych, P., Jesse, S., Herklotz, A., Tselev, A., Eom, C., Kravchenko, I. I., Yu, P., & Kalinin, S. V. ACS NANO, 9(6):6484-6492, JUN, 2015.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
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.
@article{ ISI:000356988500091,
Author = {Balke, Nina and Maksymovych, Petro and Jesse, Stephen and Herklotz,
   Andreas and Tselev, Alexander and Eom, Chang-Beom and Kravchenko, Ivan
   I. and Yu, Pu and Kalinin, Sergei V.},
Title = {{Differentiating Ferroelectric and Nonferroelectric Electromechanical
   Effects with Scanning Probe Microscopy}},
Journal = {{ACS NANO}},
Year = {{2015}},
Volume = {{9}},
Number = {{6}},
Pages = {{6484-6492}},
Month = {{JUN}},
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.}},
DOI = {{10.1021/acsnano.5b02227}},
ISSN = {{1936-0851}},
EISSN = {{1936-086X}},
ResearcherID-Numbers = {{Yu, Pu/F-1594-2014
   Kalinin, Sergei/I-9096-2012
   Eom, Chang-Beom/I-5567-2014
   Kravchenko, Ivan/K-3022-2015
   Jesse, Stephen/D-3975-2016
   Tselev, Alexander/L-8579-2015
   Maksymovych, Petro/C-3922-2016
   Balke, Nina/Q-2505-2015
   }},
ORCID-Numbers = {{Yu, Pu/0000-0002-5513-7632
   Kalinin, Sergei/0000-0001-5354-6152
   Kravchenko, Ivan/0000-0003-4999-5822
   Jesse, Stephen/0000-0002-1168-8483
   Tselev, Alexander/0000-0002-0098-6696
   Maksymovych, Petro/0000-0003-0822-8459
   Balke, Nina/0000-0001-5865-5892
   Herklotz, Andreas/0000-0002-1545-131X}},
Unique-ID = {{ISI:000356988500091}},
}

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