Related papers: Enhanced flexoelectricity at reduced dimensions re…
Modern electromechanical actuators and sensors rely on the piezoelectric effect that linearly couples strain and electric polarization. However, this effect is restricted to materials that lack inversion symmetry. In contrast, the…
Flexoelectricity is a type of ubiquitous and prominent electromechanical coupling, pertaining to the response of electrical polarization to mechanical strain gradients while not restricted to the symmetry of materials. However, large…
The polarization response of a material to a strain gradient, known as flexoelectricity, holds great promise for novel electromechanical applications. Despite considerable recent progress, however, the effect remains poorly understood. From…
Flexoelectricity refers to a linear coupling between the electric polarization and the strain gradient, such as bending or asymmetric compression. This effect is enhanced in nano-scale structures, where grain boundaries or dislocation cores…
Stable and switchable polarization of ferroelectric materials opens a possibility to electrically control their functional behavior. A particularly promising approach is to employ ferroelectric tunnel junctions where the polarization…
Flexoelectricity, polarization induced by strain gradients, is especially pronounced in two-dimensional (2D) materials due to their mechanical flexibility and sensitivity to mechanical deformation. In nanostructures with sub-nm curvature,…
Flexoelectricity is a property of all dielectric materials, where inhomogeneous strain induces electrical polarization. This effect becomes particularly prominent at the nanoscale where larger strain gradients can be obtained. While…
Flexoelectricity describes the coupling between polarization and strain/stress gradients in insulating crystals. In this paper, using the Landau-Ginsburg-Devonshire phenomenological approach, we found that flexoelectricity could increase…
Flexoelectricity is a universal effect that generates electric polarization due to broken inversion symmetry caused by local strain gradient. The large strain gradient at nanoscale makes flexo-electric effects, especially in nanoscopic…
The coupling between strain gradients and polarization, known as flexoelectricity, offers a new mechanism to control the functionality of dielectric materials. However, for the effect to be practically attractive, dynamic control of the…
Flexoelectricity is defined as the coupling between strain gradient and polarization, which is expected to be remarkable at nanoscale. However, measuring the flexoelectricity at nanoscale is challenging. In the present work, an analytical…
Ferroelectric materials are characterized by the presence of an electric dipole that can be reversed by application of an external electric field, a feature that is exploited in ferroelectric memories. All ferroelectrics are piezoelectric,…
We report on nanoscale strain gradients in ferroelectric HoMnO3 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…
It is highly desirable to discover an electromechanical coupling that allows a dielectric material to generate curvature in response to a uniform electric field, which would add a new degree of freedom for designing actuators.…
Symmetry breaking at surfaces and interfaces and the capability to support large strain gradients in nanoscale systems enable new forms of electromechanical coupling. Here we introduce the concept of quantum flexoelectricity, a phenomenon…
Large bending of materials can occur at the nanoscale in response to an electric polarization, what is called the flexoelectric effect, but to date this has not been observed directly. We report the direct observation of large flexoelectric…
Flexoelectricity - polarization induced by strain gradients - offers a route to polar functionality in centrosymmetric dielectrics, where traditional piezoelectric effects are absent. This study investigates the flexoelectric effect in…
Flexoelectricity, a coupling between strain gradients and electric polarization, has attracted significant interest due to its critical role in enhanced effects at small scales and its applicability across a diverse range of materials.…
Flexoelectric effect is the coupling between strain, polarization and their gradients, which are prominent at the nanoscale. Although this effect is important to understand nanostructures, such as domain walls in ferroelectrics, its…
We report first-principle atomistic simulations on the effect of local strain gradients on the nanoscale domain morphology of free-standing PbTiO$_3$ ultrathin films. First, the ferroelectric properties of free films at the atomic level are…