Oxygen-vacancy-related dielectric relaxations in SrTiO3 at high temperatures J. Appl. Phys. 113, 094103 (2013); 10.1063/1.4794349 Structure, magnetic and dielectric properties in Mn-substituted Sm1.5Sr0.5NiO4 ceramics J. Appl. Phys. 110, 064110 (2011); 10.1063/1.3639282Oxygen-vacancy-related dielectric relaxation in SrBi 2 Ta 1.8 V 0.2 O 9 ferroelectrics Quantum paraelectric SrTiO 3 has resulted in many investigations because of the anomalous properties. Here, using the conventional solid-state reaction method, we fabricated polycrystalline SrTiO 3 ceramics with pure cubic perovskite structure. A dielectric loss peak is observed at around 450 K and 100 Hz and it shifts to higher temperature with increasing frequency. The typical high-temperature dielectric relaxation process is confirmed to be related to the oxygen vacancies ͑OVs͒ inside ceramics. More interestingly, a Cole-Cole fitting to loss peaks reveals a weaker correlation among OVs for such dielectric materials compared with that of ferroelectrics.

The LiNbO3 crystals were polarized at fixed points and characterized by means of scanning probe microscope. The growth evolution and the decay process of the fabricated domains were carefully studied. Two critical radii rC and Rc that determine a different decay behavior of domains were put forward, where rC is considered to correspond to the point when the domains just penetrate the crystal. Those domains with radius larger than rC could exist beyond 5days, those between rC and Rc experienced a distinct metastable state before completely disappearing, while those smaller than Rc were even invisible under piezoresponse force mode.

For rhombohedral multiferroelectrics, non-180° ferroelectric domain switching may induce ferroelastic and/or (anti-)ferromagnetic effect. So the determination and control of ferroelectric domain switching angles is crucial for nonvolatile information storage and exchange-coupled magnetoelectric devices. We try to study the intrinsic characters of polarization switching in BiFeO3 by introducing a special data processing method to determine the switching angle from 2D PFM (Piezoresponse Force Microscopy) images of randomly oriented samples. The response surface of BiFeO3 is first plotted using the piezoelectric tensor got from first principles calculations. Then from the normalized 2D PFM signals before and after switching, the switching angles of randomly oriented BiFeO3 grains can be determined through numerical calculations. In the polycrystalline BiFeO3 films, up to 34% of all switched area is that with original out-of-plane (OP) polarization parallel to the poling field. 71° polarization switching is more favorable, with the area percentages of 71°, 109° and 180° domain switching being about 42%, 29% and 29%, respectively. Our analysis further reveals that IP stress and charge migration have comparable effect on switching, and they are sensitive to the geometric arrangements. This work helps exploring a route to control polarization switching in BiFeO3, so as to realize desirable magnetoelectric coupling.

Direct domain writing is carried out in single-crystalline stoichiometric LiNbO3 crystals using a scanning probe microscope. The abnormally switched domains with polarization antiparallel to the poling field are observed, and their growth and decay processes are systematically studied. The radius of these domains is proportional to the pulse magnitude while it remains constant as the pulse width varies. These abnormal domains quickly decay, the lifetime of which is linear with the poling pulse magnitude while it stretched exponentially increases with the increasing pulse width. The experimental results are carefully discussed in relation to the reported charge injection model.

The drive frequency dependent piezoresponse (PR) phase signal in near-stoichiometric lithium niobate crystals is studied by piezoresponse force microscopy. It is clearly shown that the local and nonlocal electrostatic forces have a great contribution to the PR phase signal. The significant PR phase difference of the antiparallel domains are observed at the contact resonances, which is related to the electrostatic dominated electromechanical interactions of the cantilever and tip-sample system. Moreover, the modulation voltage induced frequency shift at higher eigenmodes could be attributed to the change of indention force depending on the modulation amplitude with a piezoelectric origin. The PR phase of the silicon wafer is also measured for comparison. It is certificated that the electrostatic interactions are universal in voltage modulated scanning probe microscopy and could be extended to other phase imaging techniques.