Flexoelectricity in a metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor heterostructure

The flexoelectricity in a 100 nm-thick BaTiO3 (BTO) thin film based metal/ferroelectric insulator/semiconductor (MFS) heterostructure was reported in this letter. The transverse flexoelectric coefficient of the BTO thin film in the heterojunction structure was measured to be 287-418 μC/m at room temperature, and its temperature dependence shows that the flexoelectric effect in the BTO thin film was dominated in the paraelectric phase. We showed that the BTO thin film capacitance could be controlled at multi-levels by introducing ferroelectric and flexoelectric polarization in the film. These results are promising for understanding of the flexoelectricity in epitaxial ferroelectric thin films and practical applications of the enhanced flexoelectricity in nanoscale devices.