Local poling of ferroelectric polymers by scanning force microscopy

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Abstract
We have demonstrated a new technique to polarize locally micron‐sized areas of a ferroelectric vinylidene‐fluoride trifluoroethylene (VDF‐TrFE) copolymer film by locally applying a dc voltage between the tip of a scanning force microscope and the bottom electrode underneath the polymer film. To detect these polarized regions we have stimulated the film piezoelectrically by applying an ac electric field between tip and bottom electrode, and measuring locally amplitude and phase of the surface vibration. The size of the smallest region we could polarize so far was about 1 μm.