Shear effects in lateral piezoresponse force microscopy at 180$^\circ$ ferroelectric domain walls

Abstract: In studies using piezoresponse force microscopy, we observe a non-zero lateral piezoresponse at 180$^\circ$ domain walls in out-of-plane polarized, c-axis-oriented tetragonal ferroelectric Pb(Zr${0.2}$Ti${0.8}$)O$3$ epitaxial thin films. We attribute these observations to a shear strain effect linked to the sign change of the $d{33}$ piezoelectric coefficient through the domain wall, in agreement with theoretical predictions. We show that in monoclinically distorted tetragonal BiFeO$_3$ films, this effect is superimposed on the lateral piezoresponse due to actual in-plane polarization, and has to be taken into account in order to correctly interpret the ferroelectric domain configuration.