The Future of Quantitative PFM (Piezoresponse Force Microscopy)

Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM) is one of the most powerful techniques for nanoscale characterization of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials. Despite many advances over the last 30 years, however, it has remained challenging to make reproducible, quantitative PFM measurements and sometimes even verify if the measured response is genuine. The introduction of the Interferometric Displacement Sensor (IDS) option for Asylum Research Cypher AFMs now solves many of these challenges by eliminating electrostatic cantilever-sample artifacts and other artifacts introduced by conventional optical lever (“beam bounce”) cantilever deflection detection.

In this webinar the speakers will:

• Briefly review PFM and current challenges
• Detail the origin of common artifacts that limit PFM reproducibility
• Explain why interferometric detection on the Cypher IDS can eliminate these artifacts
• Review published examples where the Cypher IDS is used to measure piezoelectric response (d33 measurements) more reproducibly
• Review published examples where the Cypher IDS is used to characterize ferroelectric materials more confidently

The speakers:

Roger Proksch is a co-founder of Asylum Research. He is an Oxford Instruments Fellow and is currently serving as Chief Technical Officer for Oxford Instruments PLC. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota. He is a co-inventor on more than 49 AFM patents and author of numerous peer-reviewed research articles, many of which focus on AFM characterization of piezo and ferroelectric materials.

Ben Ohler is Senior Product Line Manager for the Cypher family of AFMs at Asylum Research. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California Santa Barbara. He has worked as an applications scientist and in product marketing in the AFM industry for the past 23 years and for the last 10 years at Asylum Research.