Alkali-deficiency driven charged out-of-phase boundaries for giant electromechanical response.

ABSTRACT: Traditional strategies for improving piezoelectric properties have focused on phase boundary engineering through complex chemical alloying and phase control. Although they have been successfully employed in bulk materials, they have not been effective in thin films due to the severe deterioration in epitaxy, which is critical to film properties. Contending with the opposing effects of alloying and epitaxy in thin films has been a long-standing issue. Herein we demonstrate a new strategy in alkali niobate epitaxial films, utilizing alkali vacancies without alloying to form nanopillars enclosed with out-of-phase boundaries that can give rise to a giant electromechanical response. Both atomically resolved polarization mapping and phase field simulations show that the boundaries are strained a

SUBMITTER: Wu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8121868 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature