Piezoelectricity in nominally centrosymmetric phases
Aktas, Oktay (Xi'an Jiaotong University. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Materials Science and Engineering)
Kangama, Moussa (Xi'an Jiaotong University. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Materials Science and Engineering)
Linyu, Gan (Xi'an Jiaotong University. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Materials Science and Engineering)
Catalan, Gustau (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia)
Ding, Xiangdong (Xi'an Jiaotong University. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Materials Science and Engineering)
Zunger, Alex (University of Colorado. Energy Institute)
Salje, Ekhard K. H. (University of Cambridge. Department of Earth Sciences)

Data:	2021
Resum:	Compound phases often display properties that are symmetry forbidden relative to their nominal, average crystallographic symmetry, even if extrinsic reasons (defects, strain, or imperfections) are not apparent. Specifically, breaking the macroscopic inversion symmetry of a centrosymmetric phase can dominate or significantly change its observed properties while the detailed mechanisms and magnitudes of the deviations of symmetry breaking are often obscure. Here, we choose piezoelectricity as a tool to investigate macroscopic inversion-symmetry breaking in nominally centrosymmetric materials as a prominent example and measure resonant piezoelectric spectroscopy (RPS) and Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) in 15 compounds, 18 samples, and 21 different phases, including unpoled ferroelectrics, paraelectrics, relaxors, ferroelastics, incipient ferroelectrics, and isotropic materials with low defect concentrations, i. e. , NaCl, fused silica, and CaF2. We exclude the flexoelectric effect as a source of the observed piezoelectricity yet observe piezoelectricity in all nominally cubic phases of these samples. By scaling the RPS intensities with those of RUS, we calibrate the effective piezoelectric coefficients using single-crystal quartz as standard. Using this scaling we determine the effective piezoelectric modulus in nominally nonpiezoelectric phases, finding that the "symmetry-forbidden"piezoelectric effect ranges from ∼1 to 10-5 pm/V (∼0. 5% to ∼2×10-5% of the piezoelectric coefficient of poled ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate). The values for the unpoled ferroelectric phase are only slightly higher than those in the paraelectric phase. The extremely low coefficients are well below the detection limit of conventional piezoelectric measurements and demonstrate RPS as a convenient and ultrahighly sensitive method to measure piezoelectricity. We suggest that symmetry-breaking piezoelectricity in nominally centrosymmetric materials and disordered, unpoled ferroelectrics is a common phenomenon.
Ajuts:	European Commission 861153 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2017-0706 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-579
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Centrosymmetric ; Centrosymmetric materials ; Compound phase ; Inversion symmetry ; Piezoelectric coefficient ; Piezoelectric spectroscopy ; Property ; Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy ; Scalings ; Symmetry breakings
Publicat a:	Physical Review Research, Vol. 3, issue 4 (Dec. 2021) , art. 43221, ISSN 2643-1564

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.043221

13 p, 643.2 KB

El registre apareix a les col·leccions:
Documents de recerca > Documents dels grups de recerca de la UAB > Centres i grups de recerca (producció científica) > Ciències > Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2)
Articles > Articles de recerca
Articles > Articles publicats