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Updated: May 29, 2026

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Nonlinear phenomena in multiferroic nanocapacitors: joule heating and electromechanical effects
Yunseok Kim1, Amit Kumar, Alexander Tselev
1The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA. kimy4@ornl.gov
Abstract:
We demonstrate an approach for probing nonlinear electromechanical responses in BiFeO(3) thin film nanocapacitors using half-harmonic band excitation piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). Nonlinear PFM images of nanocapacitor arrays show clearly visible clusters of capacitors associated with variations of local leakage current through the BiFeO(3) film. Strain spectroscopy measurements and finite element modeling point to significance of the Joule heating and show that the thermal effects caused by the Joule heating can provide nontrivial contributions to the nonlinear electromechanical responses in ferroic nanostructures. This approach can be further extended to unambiguous mapping of electrostatic signal contributions to PFM and related techniques.
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