SKM 2023 – scientific programme

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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur

KFM 4: Focus: Domains and Domainwalls in (Multi)Ferroic II

KFM 4.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 09:00–09:30, POT 51

Towards spatially resolved measurements of thermal transport and electrocaloric effects at the nanoscale in ferroelectric materials — Rebecca Kelly, Olivia Baxter, Fran Kurnia, Amit Kumar, Marty Gregg, and •Raymond McQuaid — School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, U.K.

Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) is a promising Atomic Force Microscopy technique for mapping the thermal properties of materials at the nanoscale. In this talk, I will discuss how SThM could be a powerful tool for studying the role of microstructure on heat flow in ferroelectric materials.

Interest in using ferroic domain boundaries to enable active control of heat flow has been steadily growing over the last decade. However, direct, spatially resolved measurements of domain wall thermal transport have yet to be reported. In the first part of the talk, I will describe our SThM based approach to map spatial variations in thermal conductivity associated with microstructural inhomogeneity. We map the contrast in thermal response of the electrode/dielectric layers of a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) to demonstrate proof of principle thermal imaging and then use this approach to investigate the thermal transport properties of conducting domain walls in LiNbO3.

In the second part of the talk, I will discuss how SThM can be adapted to measure electric field induced temperature changes in electrocaloric materials with sub-micron spatial resolution. Using our approach, 2D spatially resolved maps of electrocaloric heating and cooling can be generated, here demonstrated in a BaTiO3 based MLCC.