We develop a Landau theory for bend flexoelectricity in liquid crystals of bent-core molecules. In the nematic phase of the model, the bend flexoelectric coefficient increases as we reduce the temperature toward the nematic to polar phase transition. At this critical point, there is a second-order transition from high-temperature uniform nematic phase to low-temperature nonuniform polar phase c...

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...

The solutions for the minimizers of the energy density f (q, p) = Aq2 + Bq4 + p2 + gA,B + ( ) β κ − + | | + | | ′ ′ ′ ′ q p p q q p 2 2 describe the flexoelectric effect with a flexoelectric coupling coefficient β. The order parameters q and p can be visualized as strain and polarisation, respectively. The parameter κ denotes the ratio of intrinsic length scales for q and p. We show that the st...

Background/Aims Currently, there exists no biomarker for visceral hypersensitivity in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Piezo proteins have been proven to play an important role in the mechanical stimulation to induce visceral pain in other tissues and may also be a biomarker candidate. The aim of this study was to test the expressions of Piezo1 and Piezo2 proteins in the intestinal epithelial ce...

An approach of Green’s function is adopted to solve the inhomogeneous linear differential equations representing wave equations in piezo-composite materials. In particular, transference of horizontally polarised shear (SH) waves is considered in bedded structure comprising of porous-piezo electric layer lying over a heterogeneous half-space. Propagation of SH-waves is considered to be influence...

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 ...