Super-elastic ferroelectric single-crystal membrane with continuous electric dipole rotation

Guohua Dong; Suzhi Li; Mouteng Yao; Ziyao Zhou; Yong-Qiang Zhang; Xu Han; Zhenlin Luo; Junxiang Yao; Bin Peng; Zhongqiang Hu; Houbing Huang; Tingting Jia; Jiangyu Li; Wei Ren; Zuo-Guang Ye; Xiangdong Ding; Jun Sun; Ce-Wen Nan; Long-Qing Chen; Ju Li; Ming Liu

doi:10.1126/science.aay7221

Super-elastic ferroelectric single-crystal membrane with continuous electric dipole rotation

Science. 2019 Oct 25;366(6464):475-479. doi: 10.1126/science.aay7221.

Authors

Guohua Dong^#¹, Suzhi Li^#², Mouteng Yao^#¹, Ziyao Zhou³, Yong-Qiang Zhang⁴, Xu Han⁵, Zhenlin Luo⁵, Junxiang Yao⁶, Bin Peng¹, Zhongqiang Hu¹, Houbing Huang⁷, Tingting Jia⁶, Jiangyu Li⁶, Wei Ren¹, Zuo-Guang Ye⁸, Xiangdong Ding⁹, Jun Sun², Ce-Wen Nan¹⁰, Long-Qing Chen¹¹, Ju Li¹², Ming Liu³

Affiliations

¹ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, International Joint Laboratory for Micro/Nano Manufacture and Measurement Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
² State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
³ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, International Joint Laboratory for Micro/Nano Manufacture and Measurement Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. mingliu@xjtu.edu.cn ziyaozhou@xjtu.edu.cn dingxd@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
⁴ Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) and Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
⁵ National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
⁶ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Nanobiomechanics, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁷ Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China.
⁸ Department of Chemistry and 4D LABS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
⁹ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. mingliu@xjtu.edu.cn ziyaozhou@xjtu.edu.cn dingxd@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
¹⁰ State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
¹¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
¹² Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 31649196
DOI: 10.1126/science.aay7221

Abstract

Ferroelectrics are usually inflexible oxides that undergo brittle deformation. We synthesized freestanding single-crystalline ferroelectric barium titanate (BaTiO₃) membranes with a damage-free lifting-off process. Our BaTiO₃ membranes can undergo a ~180° folding during an in situ bending test, demonstrating a super-elasticity and ultraflexibility. We found that the origin of the super-elasticity was from the dynamic evolution of ferroelectric nanodomains. High stresses modulate the energy landscape markedly and allow the dipoles to rotate continuously between the a and c nanodomains. A continuous transition zone is formed to accommodate the variant strain and avoid high mismatch stress that usually causes fracture. The phenomenon should be possible in other ferroelectrics systems through domain engineering. The ultraflexible epitaxial ferroelectric membranes could enable many applications such as flexible sensors, memories, and electronic skins.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't