THERMAL MOTION OF ONE-DIMENSIONAL DOMAIN-WALLS IN MONOLAYERS OF A POLAR POLYMER OBSERVED BY VIDEO-STM

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used to investigate monol ayers of the ferroelectric copolymer polyvinyHdenefluoride/trifluoroet hylene P (VDF/TrFE) showing images of ordered polymer monolayers. By s canning with video frame rate, direct observation of the motion of one -dimensional domain walls was also possible for the first time. The im ages clearly show domain walls normal to the polymer chains. From meas urements of the temperature dependence of the domain wall velocities t he activation energy for the thermally generated kink motion was estim ated. These results are compared with theoretical models describing do main wall motion in ferroelectric PVDF.