2012/04/27 by Hao Zhou, Jiawang Hong, Yihui Zhang +3
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemistry #Composite material #Condensed matter physics #Dielectric #Electrostriction #Epitaxy #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Ferroelectricity #Flexoelectricity #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Nonlocal and gradient elasticity in micro/nano structures #Optoelectronics #Physics #Piezoelectricity #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Thin film #Ultimate tensile strength #Vibration Control and Rheological Fluids #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physb.2012.04.041
published as Physica B 407 3377-3381 (2012) · 20 pages, 7 figures
openalex publication_date 2012/04/27 · arxiv created 2012/04/30 · arxiv updated 2015/06/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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 the theoretical critical thickness in epitaxial BaTiO3 thin films, below which the switchable spontaneous polarization vanishes. This increase is remarkable in tensile films while trivial in compressive films due to the electrostriction caused decrease of potential barrier, which can be easily destroyed by the flexoelectricity, between the ferroelectric state and the paraelectric state in tensile films. In addition, the films are still in a uni-polar state even below the critical thickness due to the flexoelectric effect.