  Polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) a semicrystalline pieozoelectric polymer was
synthesized with varying process conditions and its ferroelectric domain
orientations were studied using piezoresponse force microscope (PFM). PVDF thin
films fabricated using tape casting technique with precursor solutions of
varying viscosities reveal that the polarization components transform from a
dominant planar component to an out-of-plane polarization components with
increase in viscosity. Interestingly the planar components possessed a head to
head or tail to tail kind of paired domains separated by a distance of ~
380-400nm. The electrostatic energies computed by numerically solving the
electrostatic equilibrium equation for the electrically inhomogeneous system
are in good correlation with the experiments. On increment of electric field,
the domains were observed to grow in size and shape which indicates amorphous
to crystalline transformation in the case of PVDF. Such transformation was
evident from x-ray diffraction studies performed in-situ in the presence of an
applied electric field.
