Cautions to predicate multiferroic by atomic force microscopy

With the ever-increasing research activities in multiferroic driven by its profound physics and enormous potential for application, magnetic force microscopy (MFM), as a variety of atomic force microscope (AFM), has been brought to investigate the magnetic properties and the voltage controlled magnetism, especially in thin films and heterostructures. Here by taking a representative multiferroic system BiFeO3/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 heterostructure and a ferroelectric PMN-PT single crystal for examples, we demonstrated that the MFM image is prone to be seriously interfered by the electrostatic interaction between the tip and sample surface, and misleads the predication of multiferroic. Assisted by the scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM), the origin and mechanism were discussed and an effective solution was proposed.