2020/03/27 by Yingzhuo Lun, Hao Zhou, Di Yao +2
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Composite material #Flexoelectricity #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Materials science #Nanoscopic scale #Nanotechnology #Nonlocal and gradient elasticity in micro/nano structures #Piezoelectric Actuators and Control #Piezoelectric coefficient #Piezoelectricity #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.mechmat.2020.103591
published as Mechanics of Materials 150, 103591 (2020)
arxiv created 2020/03/27 · openalex publication_date 2020/09/09 · arxiv updated 2021/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Piezoelectricity usually accompanies with flexoelectricity in polar materials which is the linear response of polarization to a strain gradient. Therefore, it is hard to eliminate piezoelectric effect in determination of pure flexoelectric response. In this work, we propose an analytical method to characterize the flexoelectric coefficient quantitatively at nanoscale in piezoelectric materials by screening piezoelectricity. Our results show that the flexoelectricity reduces the nanopillar stiffness while the piezoelectricity enhances it. With careful design of the shape of the nanopillars and measuring their stiffness difference, the flexoelectric coefficient can be obtained with the piezoelectric contribution eliminated completely. This approach avoids the measurement of electrical properties with dynamic load, which helps to reduce the challenge of flexoelectric measurement at nanoscale. Our work will be beneficial to quantitative characterization of flexoelectric properties and design of flexoelectric devices at nanoscale.