Investigation of the Piezoelectric Properties of the Thin Films by AFM

The reduced thickness of the thin layers to hundreds nanometers makes difficult recording / studying of the piezoelectric properties; if there are present, the values are so small that their detection is rather impossible. In the present paper, a new method based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) is proposed to investigate the piezoelectric properties with improved sensitivity. The calibration of method was realized using PZT wafers with well known characteristics and it was applied to detect piezoelectric properties of the aromatic polyimide films. The polymeric films were fabricated by aromatic polyimide with polar nitrile group synthesis based on polycondensation of aromatic diamines solution having two ether linkages and a nitrile group with different aromatic dianhydrides.