The characteristic of self-recovery holds significant implications for upholding performance stability within flexible electronic devices following the release of mechanical deformation. Herein, the dynamics of self-recovery in a buckling inorganic membrane is studied via in situ scanning probe microscopy technology. The experimental results demonstrate that the ultimate deformation ratio of the buckling BaTiO3 ferroelectric membrane is up to 88%, which is much higher than that of the buckling SrTiO3 dielectric membrane (49%). Combined with piezoresponse force microscopy and phase-field simulations, we find that ferroelectric domain transformation accompanies the whole process of buckling and self-recovery of the ferroelectric membrane, i.e., the presence of the nano-c domain not only releases part of the elastic energy of the membrane but also reduces the interface mismatch of the a/c domain, which encourages the buckling ferroelectric membrane to have excellent self-recovery properties. It is conceivable that the evolution of ferroelectric domains will play a greater role in the regulation of the mechanical properties of ferroelectric membranes and flexible devices.
Keywords: buckling BaTiO3 membranes; nanodomain; phase-field simulation; self-recovery; ultimate deformation ratio.