Associated people

J. Schröder, M.-A. Keip, H. Thai

Abstract

Piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) is a type of the scanning-probe microscopy techniques which can be used to characterize the microstructure of ferroelectric materials. It can be applied for instance to study domain structures and the structure of domain walls. The working principle of the PFM technology is based on the measurement of the local piezoelectric deformation of a probe caused by an electric loading that is applied by a tip of a scanning force microscope.
The project investigates PFM by means of numerical simulation based on the phase-field method. The phase-field model is implemented into a finite element environment in order to study the domain evolution in ferroelectrics under applied electric tip loading. The results of the numerical model will be compared to measurements which are elaborated at the Institute for Materials Science of Professor Doru C. Lupascu.
This project is part of the European Union Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) "Nanoelectromechanical motion in functional materials (NANOMOTION)" (project 1D: "Finite-element modelling of electromechanically coupled materials")