Comparison study of macro and micro scale AC and DC conductivity measurements with Impedance Spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy techniques applied in PBZT ceramics

Ferroelectric materials systematically enter into the structure of microelectronic devices. The ability to increase the packing density of the ferroelectric structures, and thus the piezoelectric coefficients of the final device, is primarily limited by the fact that such tiny ferroelectric structures may not preserve their microscopic properties at macroscopic scale. A problem of current interest in ferroelectric research is to get to know how to modify the domain structure and the piezoelectric properties of the material, if the polycrystalline material consists of grains and grain boundaries, in which electrical properties differ significantly. In this paper, we have combined the Impedance Spectroscopy (IS), as a method for detecting such inequality in the form of separated impedances, and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), as techniques for direct local engineering and investigation of grain and grain boundaries conductivity. We would like to present hitherto unreported connection between values of electrical parameters obtained by both methods.