Reconstruction of the domain orientation distribution function of polycrystalline PZT ceramics using vector piezoresponse force microscopy

Abstract

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is one of the prominent materials used in polycrystalline piezoelectric devices. Since the ferroelectric domain orientation is the most important parameter affecting the electromechanical performance, analyzing the domain orientation distribution is of great importance for the development and understanding of improved piezoceramic devices. Here, vector piezoresponse force microscopy (vector-PFM) has been applied in order to reconstruct the ferroelectric domain orientation distribution function of polished sections of device-ready polycrystalline lead zirconate titanate (PZT) material. A measurement procedure and a computer program based on the software Mathematica have been developed to automatically evaluate the vector-PFM data for reconstructing the domain orientation function. The method is tested on differently in-plane and out-of-plane poled PZT samples, and the results reveal the expected domain patterns and allow determination of the polarization orientation distribution function at high accuracy.

Dispersion in Ferroelectric Switching Performance of Polycrystalline Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 Thin Films

“…Lastly, the difficulty of aligning polarization orientations along with the external fields can be an important factor affecting a large σ value of HZO films. Kratzer et al observed that the polarization orientation of the polycrystalline tetragonal PZT thin film is favorably aligned along the direction of the external field after poling using vector piezoresponse force microscopy. In the case of tetragonal PZT, six equivalent polarization directions are possible, which provides the material with a favorable route to align the polarization along the field direction.…”

“…Lastly, the difficulty of aligning polarization orientations along with the external fields can be an important factor affecting a large σ value of HZO films. Kratzer et al 60 observed that the polarization orientation of the polycrystalline tetragonal PZT thin film is favorably aligned along the direction of the external field after poling using vector piezoresponse force microscopy.…”

Investigations of ferroelectric polycrystalline bulks and thick films using piezoresponse force microscopy

“…Based on in-plane scanning in the lateral DART mode, the authors observed PNDs with better in-plane resolution than in single-frequency PFM, as shown in figure 14. Furthermore, a 3D reconstruction of a surface displacement induced by the local converse piezoelectric effect is feasible by combining out-of-plane and two or more in-plane PFM images, as reported in [3,69,75,82,90,102,103]. The in-plane PFM images are obtained by rotating the samples by some specific angles and scanning after each rotation.…”

Piezoelectric Properties of Zinc Oxide Thin Films Grown by Plasma‐Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition

“…The investigation of the piezoelectric properties in these studies was conducted by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), which measures the indirect piezoelectric effect, i.e., the reported values result from a local microscopic effect. [ 24–26 ] Macroscopic piezoelectric properties can be measured with a stamp setup, which excites the piezoelectric material mechanically and measures the direct piezoelectric effect.…”