Scanning near-field acoustic microscopy (SNAM) investigations on BaTiO3 allows a non-destructive characterization of the ferroelectric properties at a spatial resolution down to 50 nm. Through the study of the same ferroelectric structures, the change of these ferroelectric domains are imaged dynamically. A new theoretical model is presented for the quantitative evaluation of these results. This model is based on the expansion of Green's function for the SNAM system and evaluating the electric and acoustic coupling in near-field. The developed technique and the theoretical method provide an alternative method for non-destructive characterization of ferroelectric materials. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.