Lm. Eng et al., Nanoscale reconstruction of surface crystallography from three-dimensionalpolarization distribution in ferroelectric barium-titanate ceramics, APPL PHYS L, 74(2), 1999, pp. 233-235
The three-dimensional orientation of polarization vectors at the surface of
ferroelectric barium-titanate (BaTiO3) ceramics is evaluated using voltage
-modulated scanning force microscopy (SFM). By applying an ac voltage to th
e conductive SFM tip, we measure the relative amount of the three orthogona
l components P-x, P-y, and P-z, of the polarization vector at any surface p
oint. The measured polarization orientation together with the actual domain
-wall orientation allows a precise reconstruction of the crystallographic o
rientation of the investigated grains down to a 40 nm resolution. Excellent
agreement is obtained when comparing this orientation with the crystallogr
aphic reconstruction revealed by etch patterns from the sample surface topo
graphy. We show that the surface topography manifests a domain structure, w
hich was present in the past, while the actual ferroelectric domain configu
ration is revealed by the modulation technique. (C) 1999 American Institute
of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)05502-3].