Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Large electric-field-induced strain in ferroelectric crystals by point-defect-mediated reversible domain switching

Nature Materials volume 3, pages 91–94 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Ferroelectric crystals are characterized by their asymmetric or polar structures. In an electric field, ions undergo asymmetric displacement and result in a small change in crystal dimension, which is proportional to the applied field1,2. Such electric-field-induced strain (or piezoelectricity) has found extensive applications in actuators and sensors2. However, the effect is generally very small and thus limits its usefulness. Here I show that with a different mechanism, an aged BaTiO3 single crystal can generate a large recoverable nonlinear strain of 0.75% at a low field of 200 V mm−1. At the same field this value is about 40 times higher than piezoelectric Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) ceramics and more than 10 times higher than the high-strain Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbTiO3 (PZN-PT) single crystals3,4,5. This large electro-strain stems from an unusual reversible domain switching (most importantly the switching of non-180° domains) in which the restoring force is provided by a general symmetry-conforming property of point defects. This mechanism provides a general method to achieve large electro-strain effect in a wide range of ferroelectric systems and the effect may lead to novel applications in ultra-large stroke and nonlinear actuators.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Symmetry-conforming property of point defects.
Figure 2: Mechanism of large electro-strain effect by reversible domain switching in aged ferroelectrics due to the symmetry-conforming property of point defects.
Figure 3: Double hysteresis loop (P–E curve) of an aged BaTiO3 single crystal, in comparison with the normal bistable hysteresis loop (dotted line) of the unaged crystal of the same sample.
Figure 4: Large recoverable electric field induced strain (ε) in an aged BaTiO3 single crystal along the [001] pseudo-cubic direction, in comparison with the piezoelectric effect of soft PZT ceramics and PZN-PT single crystals.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Lines, M.E. & Glass, A.M. Principles and Applications of Ferroelectrics and Related Materials (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Uchino, K. Piezoelectric Actuators and Ultrasonic Motors (Kluwer Academic, Boston, 1996).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Park, S.E. & Shrout, T.R. Ultrahigh strain and piezoelectric behaviour in relaxor based ferroelectric single crystal. J. Appl. Phys. 82, 1804–1811 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Service, R.F. Shape-changing crystals get shifter. Science 275, 1878 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Fu, H. & Cohen, R.E. Polarization rotation mechanism for ultrahigh electromechanical response in single-crystal piezoelectrics. Nature 403, 281–283 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Cohen, R.E. Origin of ferroelectricity in oxide ferroelectrics and the difference in ferroelectric behavior of BaTiO3 and PbTiO3 . Nature 358, 136–138 (1992).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Park, S.E., Wada, S., Cross, L.E. & Shrout, T.R. Crystallographically engineered BaTiO3 single crystals for high-performance piezoelectrics. J. Appl. Phys. 86, 2746–2750 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Burcsu, E., Ravichandran, G. & Bhattacharya, K. Large strain electrostrictive actuation in barium titanate. Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 1698–1700 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Ren, X. & Otsuka, K. Origin of rubber-like behaviour in metal alloys. Nature, 389, 579–582 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Ren, X. & Otsuka, K. Universal symmetry property of point defects in crystals. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1016–1019 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Wayman, C.M. Shape memory and related phenomena. Prog. Mater. Sci. 36, 203–224 (1992).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Christian, J.W. Deformation by moving interface. Metall. Trans. A 13, 509–538 (1982).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Tsunekawa, S., Suezawa, M. & Takei, H. New type ferroelastic behaviour of NdNbO4 crystals. Phys. Stat. Sol. A 40, 437–446 (1977).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Ren, X. & Otsuka, K. The interaction of point defects with the martensitic transformation: A prototype of exotic multiscale phenomena. Mater. Res. Soc. Bull. 27, 115–120 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Warren, W.L. et al. Defect-dipole alignment and tetragonal strain in ferroelectrics, J. Appl. Phys. 79, 9250–9257 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Warren, W.L., Dimos, D., Pike, G.E., Vanheusden, K. & Ramesh, R. Alignment of defect dipoles in polycrystalline ferroelectrics. Appl. Phys. Lett. 67, 1689–1691 (1995).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Lohkamper, R., Neumann, H. & Arlt, G. Internal bias in acceptor-doped BaTiO3 ceramics: Numerical evaluation of increase and decrease. J. Appl. Phys. 68, 4220–4225 (1990).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Robels, U. & Arlt, G. Domain wall clamping in ferroelectrics by orientation of defects, J. Appl. Phys. 73, 3454–3460 (1993).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Chynoweth, A.G. Radiation damage effects in ferroelectric Triglycine sulfate. Phys. Rev. 113, 159 (1959).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Keve, E.T., Bye, K.L., Whipps, P.W. & Annis, A.D. Structural inhibition of ferroelectric switiching in triglycine sulfate. Ferroelectrics 3, 39–48 (1971).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Lambeck, P.V. & Jonker, G.H. The nature of domain stabilization in ferroelectric pervoskites. J. Phys. Chem. Solids 47, 453–461 (1986).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author thanks H.S. Luo for providing single crystal samples, D.Z. Sun, K. Otsuka, T. Suzuki, K. Nakamura, L.X. Zhang, W. Chen for helpful discussions, and K. Nishida for EPMA chemical analysis of the samples. This work was supported by Sakigake-21 of JST and a special fund for Cheungkong Professorship and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Physics Group, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, 305-0047, Ibaraki, Japan

    Xiaobing Ren

  2. PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, 332-0012, Japan

    Xiaobing Ren

  3. Multi-disciplinary Materials Research Centre and State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behaviour of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China

    Xiaobing Ren

Authors
  1. Xiaobing Ren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information, Fig. S1

Supplementary Information, Fig. S2 (PDF 507 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ren, X. Large electric-field-induced strain in ferroelectric crystals by point-defect-mediated reversible domain switching. Nature Mater 3, 91–94 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1051

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1051

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing