Abstract
Interface engineering by local polarization using piezoelectric1,2,3,4, pyroelectric5,6 and ferroelectric7,8,9 effects has attracted considerable attention as a promising approach for tunable electronics/optoelectronics, human–machine interfacing and artificial intelligence. However, this approach has mainly been applied to non-centrosymmetric semiconductors, such as wurtzite-structured ZnO and GaN, limiting its practical applications. Here we demonstrate an electronic regulation mechanism, the flexoelectronics, which is applicable to any semiconductor type, expanding flexoelectricity10,11,12,13 to conventional semiconductors such as Si, Ge and GaAs. The inner-crystal polarization potential generated by the flexoelectric field serving as a ‘gate’ can be used to modulate the metal–semiconductor interface Schottky barrier and further tune charge-carrier transport. We observe a giant flexoelectronic effect in bulk centrosymmetric semiconductors of Si, TiO2 and Nb–SrTiO3 with high strain sensitivity (>2,650), largely outperforming state-of-the-art Si-nanowire strain sensors and even piezoresistive, piezoelectric and ferroelectric nanodevices14. The effect can be used to mechanically switch the electronics in the nanoscale with fast response (<4 ms) and high resolution (~0.78 nm). This opens up the possibility of realizing strain-modulated electronics in centrosymmetric semiconductors, paving the way for local polarization field-controlled electronics and high-performance electromechanical applications.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Wu, W. Z., Wen, X. N. & Wang, Z. L. Taxel-addressable matrix of vertical-nanowire piezotronic transistors for active and adaptive tactile imaging. Science 340, 952–957 (2013).
Wu, W. Z. et al. Piezoelectricity of single-atomic-layer MoS2 for energy conversion and piezotronics. Nature 514, 470–474 (2014).
Pan, C. F. et al. High-resolution electroluminescent imaging of pressure distribution using a piezoelectric nanowire LED array. Nat. Photon. 7, 752–758 (2013).
Qi, J. J. et al. Piezoelectric effect in chemical vapour deposition-grown atomic-monolayer triangular molybdenum disulfide piezotronics. Nat. Commun. 6, 7430 (2015).
Stewart, J. W., Vella, J. H., Li, W., Fan, S. & Mikkelsen, M. H. Ultrafast pyroelectric photodetection with on-chip spectral filters. Nat. Mater. 19, 158–162 (2019).
Wang, Z., Yu, R., Pan, C., Li, Z., Yang, J., Yi, F. & Wang, Z. L. Light-induced pyroelectric effect as an effective approach for ultrafast ultraviolet nanosensing. Nat. Commun. 6, 8401 (2015).
Maksymovych, P., Jesse, S., Yu, P., Ramesh, R., Baddorf, A. P. & Kalinin, S. V. Polarization control of electron tunneling into ferroelectric surfaces. Science 324, 1421–1425 (2009).
Garcia, V. et al. Ferroelectric control of spin polarization. Science 327, 1106–1110 (2010).
Zhang, Y. et al. Anisotropic polarization-induced conductance at a ferroelectric–insulator interface. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 1132–1136 (2018).
Kogan, S. M. Piezoelectric effect during inhomogeneous deformation and acoustic scattering of carriers in crystals. Sov. Phys. Solid State 5, 2069–2070 (1964).
Bursian, E. & Zaikovskii, O. I. Changes in curvature of ferroelectric film due to polarization. Sov. Phys. Solid State 10, 1121 (1968).
Catalan, G. et al. Flexoelectric rotation of polarization in ferroelectric thin films. Nat. Mater. 10, 963–967 (2011).
Lu, H. et al. Mechanical writing of ferroelectric polarization. Science 336, 59–61 (2012).
Trung, T. Q. & Lee, N. E. Flexible and stretchable physical sensor integrated platforms for wearable human-activity monitoring and personal healthcare. Adv. Mater. 28, 4338–4372 (2016).
Bhaskar, U. K., Banerjee, N., Abdollahi, A., Wang, Z., Schlom, D. G., Rijnders, G. & Catalan, G. A flexoelectric microelectromechanical system on silicon. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 263–266 (2016).
Wen, X., Li, D., Tan, K., Deng, Q. & Shen, S. P. Flexoelectret: an electret with a tunable flexoelectriclike response. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 148001 (2019).
Das, S. et al. Enhanced flexoelectricity at reduced dimensions revealed by mechanically tunable quantum tunneling. Nat. Commun. 10, 537 (2019).
Narvaez, J., Vasquez-Sancho, F. & Catalan, G. Enhanced flexoelectric-like response in oxide semiconductors. Nature 538, 219–221 (2016).
Wang, Z. L. Nanopiezotronics. Adv. Mater. 19, 889–892 (2007).
Wu, W. Z. & Wang, Z. L. Piezotronics and piezo-phototronics for adaptive electronics and optoelectronics. Nat. Rev. Mater. 1, 16031 (2016).
Zhang, Y., Liu, Y. & Wang, Z. L. Fundamental theory of piezotronics. Adv. Mater. 23, 3004–3013 (2011).
Wang, Z. L. & Wu, W. Z. Piezotronics and piezo-phototronics: fundamentals and applications. Natl Sci. Rev. 1, 62–90 (2014).
Fischer-Cripps, A. C Introduction to Contact Mechanics (Springer, 2000).
Zubko, P., Catalan, G., Buckley, A., Welche, P. R. L. & Scott, J. F. Strain-gradient-induced polarization in SrTiO3 single crystal. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 167601 (2007).
Hong, J. W. & Vanderbilt, D. First-principles theory and calculation of flexoelectricity. Phys. Rev. B 88, 174107 (2013).
Amjadi, M., Kyung, K. U., Park, I. & Sitti, M. Stretchable, skin-mountable, and wearable strain sensors and their potential applications: a review. Adv. Funct. Mater. 26, 1678–1698 (2016).
Conley, H. J. et al. Bandgap engineering of strained monolayer and bilayer MoS2. Nano Lett. 13, 3626–3630 (2013).
Gao, Y. & Wang, Z. L. Equilibrium potential of free charge carriers in a bent piezoelectric semiconductive nanowire. Nano Lett. 9, 1103–1110 (2009).
Park, S. M. et al. Selective control of multiple ferroelectric switching pathways using a trailing flexoelectric field. Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 366–370 (2018).
Chu, K. et al. Enhancement of the anisotropic photocurrent in ferroelectric oxides by strain gradients. Nat. Nanotechnol. 10, 972–979 (2015).
Landau, L. D., Pitaevskii L. P., Kosevich, A. M., Lifshitz, E.M. Theory of Elasticity (Elsevier, 1986).
Yudin, P. V. & Tagantsev, A. K. Fundamentals of flexoelectricity in solids. Nanotechnology 24, 432001 (2013).
Očenášek, J. et al. Nanomechanics of flexoelectric switching. Phys. Rev. B 92, 035417 (2015).
Zubko, P., Catalan, G. & Tagantsev, K. T. Flexoelectric effect in solids. Annu. Rev. Mater. Res. 43, 387–421 (2013).
Eliseev, E. A. & Morozovska, A. N. Hidden symmetry of flexoelectric coupling. Phys. Rev. B 98, 094108 (2018).
Acknowledgements
We thank Q. Xu and S. Xu for helpful discussion. This research was supported by the National Key R&D Project from Minister of Science and Technology (grant number 2016YFA0202704), Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (grant numbers Z171100000317001, Z171100002017017, Y3993113DF) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 11704032, 51432005, 5151101243, 51561145021, 51322203 and 51472111).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Z.L.W., L.W., Y.Q. and S.L conceived the project. Z.L.W., L.W., Y.Q. and S.L. designed the experiments. L.W. and S.L. performed the experiments and analysed the results. X.F and C.Z performed the theoretical calculations and analysis. L.Z and J.Z provided assistance with the experiments. All authors contributed to discussions and to writing the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Shanming Ke and Sang-Woo Kim for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Notes 1–8, Figs. 1–26, Tables 1–4 and refs 1–72.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, L., Liu, S., Feng, X. et al. Flexoelectronics of centrosymmetric semiconductors. Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 661–667 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-0700-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-0700-y
This article is cited by
-
Electrically and mechanically driven rotation of polar spirals in a relaxor ferroelectric polymer
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Switchable tribology of ferroelectrics
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Flexoelectric polarizing and control of a ferromagnetic metal
Nature Physics (2024)
-
Size-dependent effect of the flexoelectronics in a composite beam
Acta Mechanica (2024)
-
Flexo-photocatalysis in centrosymmetric semiconductors
Nano Research (2024)