The Interaction of an 180 degree Ferroelectric Domain Wall with a Biased Scanning Probe Microscopy Tip: Effective Wall Geometry and Thermodynamics in Ginzburg-Landau-Devonshire Theory

Abstract

The interaction of ferroelectric 180 degree domain wall with a strongly inhomogeneous electric field of biased Scanning Probe Microscope tip is analyzed within continuous Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory. Equilibrium shape of the initially flat domain wall boundary bends, attracts or repulses from the probe apex, depending on the sign and value of the applied bias. For large tip-wall separations, the probe-induced domain nucleation is possible. The approximate analytical expressions for the polarization distribution are derived using direct variational method. The expressions provide insight how the equilibrium polarization distribution depends on the wall finite-width, correlation and depolarization effects, electrostatic potential distribution of the probe and ferroelectric material parameters.

arXiv comment37 pages, 9 figures, 4 Appendices, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (5)

• Nanoscale studies of domain wall motion in epitaxial ferroelectric thin films
• Probing the role of single defects on the thermodynamics of electric-field induced phase transitions
• Piezoresponse Force Spectroscopy of Ferroelectric Materials
• Nanoelectromechanics of Polarization Switching in Piezoresponse Force Microscopy
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• Physics and modeling of multi-domain FeFET with domain wall induced Negative Capacitance
• Self-consistent theory of nanodomain formation on non-polar surfaces of ferroelectrics
• Impact of ferroelectric nonlinearity and correlation effects on nanodomain formation