Thermal stability of LiTaO3 domains engineered by scanning force microscopy.

The stability of domains engineered in near-stoichiometric and congruent composition LiTaO3 crystals was investigated after heat treatment using scanning force microscopy. Piezoresponse images of the domains showed that the heat treatment had induced backswitching in the near-stoichiometric crystals and that the degree of backswitching depended on the domain structure and heating temperature. No backswitching was observed in the congruent composition crystals after the same heat treatment. The thermal stability of engineered LiTaO3 domains thus depends on the number of nonstoichiometric defects, the domain wall energy, and the pyroelectric effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]