Nonlinear Phenomena in Multiferroic Nanocapacitors: Joule Heating and Electromechanical Effects

We demonstrate an approach for probing nonlinear electromechanical responses in BiFeO3 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 BiFeO3 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.