Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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FM: Fachverband Funktionsmaterialien

FM 4: Focus Session: (Anti)ferroic states – Non-conventional states I

FM 4.6: Talk

Monday, March 9, 2026, 16:45–17:00, BEY/0138

Correlated domain and crystallographic orientation mapping in uniaxial ferroelectric polycrystals by interferometric vector piezoresponse force microscopy — •Ruben Dragland¹, Jan Schultheiss¹, Ivan Ushakov¹, Roger Proksch², and Dennis Meier^1,3,4 — ¹NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway — ²Asylum Research an Oxford Instruments Company, Santa Barbara, USA — ³University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany — ⁴Research Alliance Ruhr, Bochum, Germany

Advances in scanning probe microscopy techniques are expanding the possibilities for nanoscale characterization of functional materials, giving new opportunities for correlated studies of their local properties. Here, we apply a recent extension of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) for simultaneous mapping of polarization domains and local crystallographic orientation in a uniaxial ferroelectric. By shifting the laser beam position on the cantilever, direction-dependent piezoresponse signals are acquired analogous to classical vector PFM, but without the need to rotate the sample. Using polycrystals of the uniaxial ferroelectric ErMnO₃ as a model system, we demonstrate that the reconstructed piezoresponse vectors correlate one-to-one with the crystallographic orientations of the micrometer-sized grains, carrying grain-orientation and domain-related information. We establish a versatile platform for rapid, multimodal characterization of polycrystalline uniaxial ferroelectrics, enabling automated, high-throughput reconstruction of polarization, and grain orientations with nanoscale precision.

Keywords: Ferroelectrics; Grain Orientation; Scanning Probe Microscopy