Piezo- and pyroelectric microscopy

Polarization imaging in ferroelectric polymer thin film capacitors by pyroelectric scanning microscopy

“…13,14 PSM works with crystals [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and with thin films. [20][21][22][23] PSM has also been used to image domains 14,24 thermally written polarization patterns, [25][26][27][28] and to follow polarization and domain dynamics. [29][30][31][32] Moreover, 3D polarization information can be obtained from crystals and thick films by combining 2D laser scanning with depth profiles obtained using either pulse time-of-flight methods, 33 or Laser Intensity Modulation Method (LIMM), [34][35][36][37][38] or both.…”

Three-dimensional thermal-pulse probing of polarization profiles with low thermal stress

“…The depth-resolution is typically less than 1 µm, and near-surface lateral resolutions of less than 40 µm have been reported [2]. Closely related techniques are the focused or scanning "Laser Intensity Modulation Method" (LIMM) [3,4] and pyroelectric microscopy [5]. Recently, a multi-beam-point analysis that couples the current signal from several neighboring spots resulted in a 2-4 improvement in the lateral resolution [6].…”

Polarization patterning by laser-induced phase change in ferroelectric polymer films

“…The PSM method has proven useful for studying domains and other polarization inhomoge neities in ferroelectric crystals [11,15], ferroelectric poly mer thin films [9,16,17], and periodically poled non linear optical polymer films [18,19]. The PSM method consists of heating a small area of the capacitor with a laser beam, in this case the 5 mW output of a 633 nm he lium-neon laser that was focused to a 17-μm diameter spot with a microscope objective.…”