Investigation of ferroelectric domains in thin films of vinylidene fluoride oligomers

Authors

• Pankaj Sharma, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow
• Shashi Poddar, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Rafal Korlacki, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Stephen Ducharme, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Alexei Gruverman, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

7-2014

Citation

APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 105, 022906 (2014); doi: 10.1063/1.4890412

Comments

Copyright (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. Used by permission.

Abstract

High-resolution vector piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) has been used to investigate ferroelectric domains in thin vinylidene fluoride oligomer films fabricated by the Langmuir-Blodgett deposition technique. Molecular chains are found to be preferentially oriented normal to the substrate, and PFM imaging shows that the films are in ferroelectric β-phase with a predominantly in-plane polarization, in agreement with infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry and X-ray diffraction measurements. The fractal analysis of domain structure has yielded the Hausdorff dimension (D) in the range of ~1.3–1.5 indicating a random-bond nature of the disorder potential, with domain size exhibiting Landau-Lifshitz-Kittel scaling.