An isogeometric approach to flexoelectric effect in ferroelectric materials

Giant flexoelectric effect in ferroelectric epitaxial thin films.

We report on nanoscale strain gradients in ferroelectric HoMnO(3) epitaxial thin films, resulting in a giant flexoelectric effect. Using grazing-incidence in-plane x-ray diffraction, we measured strain gradients in the films, which were 6 or 7 orders of magnitude larger than typical values reported for bulk oxides. The combination of transmission electron microscopy, electrical measurements, an...

Flexoelectric rotation of polarization in ferroelectric thin films.

Strain engineering enables modification of the properties of thin films using the stress from the substrates on which they are grown. Strain may be relaxed, however, and this can also modify the properties thanks to the coupling between strain gradient and polarization known as flexoelectricity. Here we have studied the strain distribution inside epitaxial films of the archetypal ferroelectric ...

Flexoelectric Effect in Solids

Piezoelectricity—the coupling between strain and electrical polarization, allowed 2 Zubko, Catalan, Tagantsev by symmetry in a restricted class of materials—is at the heart of many devices that permeate our daily life. Since its discovery in the 1880’s by Pierre and Jacques Curie, the piezoelectric effect has found use in everything from submarine sonars to cigarette lighters. By contrast, flex...

Ferroelectric Optics:Optical Bistability in Nonlinear Kerr Ferroelectric Materials

Ferroelectric oxides with perovskite structure such as PbLaTiO3 (PLT), BaTiO3, PbTiO3, SrBi2Ta2O9 and LiNbO3 are very attractive class of materials which possess numerous useful properties such as high dielectric constant, large spontaneous polarization, and remarkable optical nonlinearity. Potential applications of these materials include real-time holography, correlation filtering and various...

Threshold Flexoelectric Effect in Nematic Liquid Crystal