Room temperature surface piezoelectricity in SrTiO3 ceramics via piezoresponse force microscopy

Abstract

SrTiO3 ceramics are investigated by piezoresponse force microscopy. Piezoelectric contrast is observed on polished surfaces in both vertical and lateral regimes and depends on the grain orientation varying in both sign (polarization direction) and amplitude. The observed contrast is attested to the surface piezoelectricity due to flexoelectric effect (strain gradient-induced polarization) caused by the surface relaxation. The estimated flexoelectric coefficient is approximately one order of magnitude smaller as compared to those recently measured in SrTiO3 single crystals. The observed enhancement of piezoresponse signal at the grain boundaries is explained by the dipole moments associated with inhomogeneous distribution of oxygen vacancies.

References in corpus (3)

• Strain gradient induced polarization in SrTiO3 single crystals
• Strain Gradients in Epitaxial Ferroelectrics
• Multiferroic Domain Dynamics in Strained Strontium Titanate

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Surface polar states and pyroelectricity in ferroelastics induced by flexo-roto field
• Flexocoupling impact on the size effects of piezo- response and conductance in mixed-type ferroelectrics-semiconductors under applied pressure
• Frequency Dependent Dynamical Electromechanical Response of Mixed Ionic-Electronic Conductors
• Symmetry breaking in hexagonal and cubic polymorphs of BaTiO3
• Nonlinear dynamics of polar regions in paraelectric phase of (Ba1-x,Srx)TiO3 ceramics
• Roto-flexoelectric coupling impact on the phase diagrams and pyroelectricity of thin SrTiO3 films
• Low-symmetry monoclinic phase stabilized by oxygen octahedra rotations in thin strained EuxSr1-xTiO3 films
• Flexocoupling impact on the kinetics of polarization reversal
• Atomic scale symmetry and polar nanoclusters in the paraelectric phase of ferroelectric materials
• Flexoelectricity induced spatially modulated phases in ferroics and liquid crystals (Author review)