Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.98, No.6, 1848-1857, 2015
Domain Wall Motion Across Various Grain Boundaries in Ferroelectric Thin Films
Domain wall movement at and near engineered 10 degrees, 15 degrees, and 24 degrees tilt and 10 degrees and 30 degrees twist grain boundaries was measured by band excitation piezoresponse force microscopy for Pb(Zr,Ti)O-3 films with Zr/Ti ratio of 45/55 and 52/48. A minimum in nonlinear response was observed at the grain boundary for the highest angle twist and tilt grain boundaries, while a maximum in nonlinear response was observed at the 10 degrees tilt grain boundaries. The observed nonlinear response was correlated with the domain configurations imaged in cross section by transmission electron microscopy.