%0 Journal Article
%K Nucleation
%K Transmission electron microscopy
%K In situ
%K Electric fields
%K Multiferroics
%K Domain walls
%K Ferroelectric materials
%K Polarization switching
%K Ferroelectricity
%K Ferroelectric domains
%K Scanning transmission electron microscopy
%K Multiferroic materials
%K Ferroelectric films
%K Ferroelastic domains
%K Scanning probes
%K Mesoscopics
%K Bottom electrodes
%K First-order
%K In Situ Study
%K Local electric field
%K Nucleation and growth
%K Nucleation sites
%K Phase-field modeling
%K Scanning transmission electron microscopes
%K Spatially resolved
%K Conductive films
%K Scanning
%A H Chang
%A S.V Kalinin
%A S Yang
%A P Yu
%A S Bhattacharya
%A P.P Wu
%A N Balke
%A S Jesse
%A L.Q Chen
%A Ramamoorthy Ramesh
%A S.J Pennycook
%A A.Y Borisevich
%B Journal of Applied Physics
%D 2011
%G eng
%R 10.1063/1.3623779
%T Watching domains grow: In-situ studies of polarization switching by combined scanning probe and scanning transmission electron microscopy
%V 110
%X Ferroelectric domain nucleation and growth in multiferroic BiFeO 3 films is observed directly by applying a local electric field with a conductive tip inside a scanning transmission electron microscope. The nucleation and growth of a ferroelastic domain and its interaction with pre-existing 71° domain walls are observed and compared with the results of phase-field modeling. In particular, a preferential nucleation site and direction-dependent pinning of domain walls are observed due to slow kinetics of metastable switching in the sample without a bottom electrode. These in situ spatially resolved observations of a first-order bias-induced phase transition reveal the mesoscopic mechanisms underpinning functionality of a wide range of multiferroic materials. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.