Optical Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy for Ferroic Materials

Optical second harmonic generation (SHG), which is sensitive to the symmetry breaking, provides a powerful experimental technique for investigation of ferroic materials, i.e. ferroelectrics, magnetics, and multiferroics. A far-field confocal microscopy provides three-dimensional imaging of an order parameter of ferroics with a spatial resolution up to diffraction limit of a probing wavelength. In this paper, we discuss general important consideration regarding SHG microscopy and show new imaging techniques for ferroelectric and magnetic domains and switching, bio-inspired ferroelectrics, as well as femtosecond laser annealed ferroelectric microstructures.