Piezoresponse Force Microscopy Studies of pc-BiFeO 3 Thin Films Produced by the Simultaneous Laser Ablation of Bi and FeO 3

ABSTRACT Bismuth iron oxide BFO films were produced by the pulsed laser deposition technique. These films are a mixture of BiFeO 3 ferroelectrical and Bi 25 FeO 40 piezoelectrical phases. The ferroelectrical domain structure of these films was studied via contact resonance piezoresponse force microscopy (CR-PFM) and resonance tracking PFM (RT-PFM). The proportions of area of these BFO phases were derived from the PFM images. The ferroelectrical domain size corresponds to the size of the BiFeO 3 crystals. The CR-PFM and RT-PFM techniques allowed us to be able to distinguish between the ferroelectric domains and the piezoelectric regions existing in the polycrystalline films. INTRODUCTION The scientific community has a lot of interest in multiferroic materials due to their attractive simultaneous magnetic and ferroelectric properties. BiFeO 3 is one of the most studied multiferroic materials due to its good ferroelectric properties with a Curie temperature T C ≈ 830.8 oC and antiferromagnetic characteristics with a Neel temperature T