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Piezoelectric Response at Nanoscale

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Abstract

Considerable efforts were invested to study the piezoelectricity at the nanoscale, which serves as a physical basis for a wide range of smart nanodevices and nanoelectronics. This chapter reviews the recent progress in characterizing the effective piezoelectric property in a nanoworld and the influence of the piezoelectric effect on the mechanical responses of nanoscale structures. Extremely strong piezoelectric responses of piezoelectric nanomaterials were reported in experiments, and the size dependence was observed in atomistic simulations. Attempts were also made to reveal the physics behind these unique features, but the universal theory has not yet been established. Among the proposed mechanisms, the theory of surface piezoelectricity is widely accepted and thus used to derive two effective piezoelectric coefficients (EPCs) for investigating the effect of piezoelectricity on (1) stress or strain and (2) the effective elastic moduli of piezoelectric nanomaterials. The EPCs are found to be size-dependent and also deformation-selective. The obtained results also show that at the nanoscale the surface piezoelectricity can enhance the piezoelectric potential of nanostructures when subjected to a static deformation. In addition, the intrinsic loss of oscillating piezoelectric nanostructures can be mitigated through the piezoelectric effect at the nanoscale.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Discovery Accelerator Supplements.

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  1. Mechanics and Aerospace Design Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 3G8

    Jin Zhang & Shaker A. Meguid

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  1. Jin Zhang
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Correspondence to Shaker A. Meguid .

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  1. Dept.ofMech.&IndusEngUniversityofToronto, Mechanics&AerospaceDesignLaboratory, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Shaker A. Meguid

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Zhang, J., Meguid, S.A. (2016). Piezoelectric Response at Nanoscale. In: Meguid, S. (eds) Advances in Nanocomposites. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31662-8_2

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