Flexoelectric Effect in Solids

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...

Threshold Flexoelectric Effect in Nematic Liquid Crystal

Giant flexoelectric effect through interfacial strain relaxation.

Interfacial strain gradients in oxide epitaxial thin films provide an interesting opportunity to study flexoelectric effects and their potential applications. Oxide epitaxial thin films can exhibit giant and tunable flexoelectric effects, which are six or seven orders of magnitude larger than those in conventional bulk solids. The strain gradient in an oxide epitaxial thin film can generate an ...

Measurement of Flexoelectric Effect in Lead Zirconate Titanate Ceramics*

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics is usually used as a piezoelectric material. However it has characteristics of not only piezoelectricity but also flexoelectricity. Piezoelectricity is a phenomenon that electric polarization is induced by strain, and flexoelectricity is the one that the polarization is induced by strain gradient. In this study, flexoelectricity in poled soft PZT ceramics ...

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...