SHG investigation of ferroelectricity, domain orientations, and phases of monolithic PVDF thin films

Second harmonic generation (SHG) laser spectroscopy has been demonstrated to be a powerful, sensitive, and non-destructive analytical technique to study crystalline phases, domain structures, and molecular dipole orientations of ferroelectric polymeric thin films such as PVDF. While other spectroscopic techniques, such as WXRD and FTIR, do provide valuable information on the crystalline phases, they are not sensitive enough to provide the detailed information at molecular levels and properties at interfaces. The current study of single layered PVDF polymer has also shown that SHG can be further developed into an in-situ, sensitive and quantitative tool to study ferroelectric polymeric thin film structures. In combination, SHG and electric field induced SHG (EFISH) techniques will allow us to interrogate multilayered structures layer-by-layer, the effects of physical confinement and interfacial physics.

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