Imaging of domain-inverted gratings in LiNbO3 by electrostatic force microscopy

Abstract
Ferroelectric domains in LiNbO3 have been investigated by means of electrostatic force microscopy. Polarization-inverted gratings with 4 μm periodicity were fabricated by titanium diffusion into both +c and −c faces of single-domain LiNbO3 crystals. The distribution of the electric field in the vicinity of the sample surface was measured using scanning probe microscopy. The electrostatic force image was found to correlate with the shape of the domain-inverted profile observed by scanning electron and optical microscopies.