Nanometer spot allocation for Raman spectroscopy on ferroelectrics by polarization and piezoresponse force microscopy

We report the 100% correlation between polarized light microscopy (PLM), piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), and micro-Raman spectroscopy when investigating domain-rich ferroelectric systems. In order to allocate the desired spot on a submicrometer scale, both PLM and PFM were combined to elucidate the effective three-dimensional ferroelectric domain distribution. With PFM we observe spike-like a and c domains well inside extended a and c-polarized areas, which were not conclusive with PLM. The knowledge on such a domain distribution is essential when addressing quantitative micro-Raman spectroscopy. In addition, we show the unambiguous differentiation between a and c domains on the submicrometer scale using the B-2 mode of lattice vibrations. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.