Controllable functional ferroelectric domain walls under piezoresponse microscope

Ferroelectric materials possessing high photoelectric, piezoelectric and dielectric response are widely applied in industrial products, such as transducers, capacitors and memory devices. However, as the development of technology, miniaturization, integration and flexibility are of great importance, which could hardly be fulfilled by traditional bulk ferroelectric materials. Hence, nanoscale ferroelectric domain walls (DWs), with recently found dramatic mechanical, electrical, optical and magnetic properties aside from ferroelectric domains, have become a hot topic.