Clamping enables enhanced electromechanical responses in antiferroelectric thin films

Hao Pan; Menglin Zhu; Ella Banyas; Louis Alaerts; Megha Acharya; Hongrui Zhang; Jiyeob Kim; Xianzhe Chen; Xiaoxi Huang; Michael Xu; Isaac Harris; Zishen Tian; Francesco Ricci; Brendan Hanrahan; Jonathan E Spanier; Geoffroy Hautier; James M LeBeau; Jeffrey B Neaton; Lane W Martin

doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01907-y

Clamping enables enhanced electromechanical responses in antiferroelectric thin films

Nat Mater. 2024 Jul;23(7):944-950. doi: 10.1038/s41563-024-01907-y. Epub 2024 May 23.

Authors

Hao Pan^#¹, Menglin Zhu^#², Ella Banyas^#^{3

4}, Louis Alaerts⁵, Megha Acharya^{1

3}, Hongrui Zhang^{1

3}, Jiyeob Kim¹, Xianzhe Chen^{1

3}, Xiaoxi Huang¹, Michael Xu², Isaac Harris⁴, Zishen Tian^{1

3}, Francesco Ricci^{3

4}, Brendan Hanrahan⁶, Jonathan E Spanier⁷, Geoffroy Hautier⁵, James M LeBeau², Jeffrey B Neaton^{3

4

8}, Lane W Martin^{9

10

11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁵ Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
⁶ DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, USA.
⁷ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
⁸ Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. lwmartin@rice.edu.
¹⁰ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA. lwmartin@rice.edu.
¹¹ Departments of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. lwmartin@rice.edu.
¹² Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. lwmartin@rice.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38783106
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01907-y

Abstract

Thin-film materials with large electromechanical responses are fundamental enablers of next-generation micro-/nano-electromechanical applications. Conventional electromechanical materials (for example, ferroelectrics and relaxors), however, exhibit severely degraded responses when scaled down to submicrometre-thick films due to substrate constraints (clamping). This limitation is overcome, and substantial electromechanical responses in antiferroelectric thin films are achieved through an unconventional coupling of the field-induced antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric phase transition and the substrate constraints. A detilting of the oxygen octahedra and lattice-volume expansion in all dimensions are observed commensurate with the phase transition using operando electron microscopy, such that the in-plane clamping further enhances the out-of-plane expansion, as rationalized using first-principles calculations. In turn, a non-traditional thickness scaling is realized wherein an electromechanical strain (1.7%) is produced from a model antiferroelectric PbZrO₃ film that is just 100 nm thick. The high performance and understanding of the mechanism provide a promising pathway to develop high-performance micro-/nano-electromechanical systems.

Abstract

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