Ultrahigh electromechanical response from competing ferroic orders

Materials with electromechanical coupling are essential for transducers and acoustic devices as reversible converters between mechanical and electrical energy1-6. High electromechanical responses are typically found in materials with strong structural instabilities, conventionally achieved by two st...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lin, Baichen, Ong, Khuong Phuong, Yang, Tiannan, Zeng, Qibin, Hui, Hui Kim, Ye, Zhen, Sim, Celine, Yen, Zhihao, Yang, Ping, Dou, Yanxin, Li, Xiaolong, Gao, Xingyu, Tan, Ivan Chee Kiang, Lim, Zhi Shiuh, Zeng, Shengwei, Luo, Tiancheng, Xu, Jinlong, Tong, Xin, Li, Patrick Wen Feng, Ren, Minqin, Zeng, Kaiyang, Sun, Chengliang, Ramakrishna, Seeram, Breese, Mark B. H., Boothroyd, Chris, Lee, Chengkuo, Singh, David J., Lam, Yeng Ming, Liu, Huajun
Other Authors: School of Materials Science and Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180679
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Materials with electromechanical coupling are essential for transducers and acoustic devices as reversible converters between mechanical and electrical energy1-6. High electromechanical responses are typically found in materials with strong structural instabilities, conventionally achieved by two strategies-morphotropic phase boundaries7 and nanoscale structural heterogeneity8. Here we demonstrate a different strategy to accomplish ultrahigh electromechanical response by inducing extreme structural instability from competing antiferroelectric and ferroelectric orders. Guided by the phase diagram and theoretical calculations, we designed the coexistence of antiferroelectric orthorhombic and ferroelectric rhombohedral phases in sodium niobate thin films. These films show effective piezoelectric coefficients above 5,000 pm V-1 because of electric-field-induced antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transitions. Our results provide a general approach to design and exploit antiferroelectric materials for electromechanical devices.