Thermal motion of one-dimensional domain walls in monolayers of a polar polymer observed by Video-STM

Abstract

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used to investigate monolayers of the ferroelectric copolymer polyvinylidenefluoride/trifluoroethylene P(VDF/TrFE) showing images of ordered polymer monolayers. By scanning with video frame rate, direct observation of the motion of onedimensional domain walls was also possible for the first time. The images clearly show domain walls normal to the polymer chains. From measurements of the temperature dependence of the domain wall velocities the activation energy for the thermally generated kink motion was estimated. These results are compared with theoretical models describing domain wall motion in ferroelectric PVDF.