Optical Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy for Ferroic Materials

Abstract

Optical second harmonic generation (SHG), which is sensitive to the symmetry breaking, provides a powerful experimental technique for investigation of ferroic materials, i.e. ferroelectrics, magnetics, and multiferroics. A far-field confocal microscopy provides three-dimensional imaging of an order parameter of ferroics with a spatial resolution up to diffraction limit of a probing wavelength. In this paper, we discuss general important consideration regarding SHG microscopy and show new imaging techniques for ferroelectric and magnetic domains and switching, bio-inspired ferroelectrics, as well as femtosecond laser annealed ferroelectric microstructures.

Keywords:

• Second harmonic generation
• confocal microscopy
• ferroelectric switching
• ferroics
• ferroelectric
• multiferroic
• polarization

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 13-02-124450 ofi-m) and by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Grant No. 14.Z50.31.0034 and State Task for MSTU MIREA No. 144).