Piezoelectrics by Design: A Route through Short-period Perovskite Superlattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how short-period ferroelectric/paraelectric superlattices can be designed to achieve tunable and robust piezoelectric responses, with potential advantages over bulk materials due to their stability and temperature insensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces a first-principles approach to designing superlattices with customizable piezoelectric properties by exploiting polar discontinuities and component choices.

Findings

Piezoelectric response can be tuned in sign and magnitude.

Superlattices exhibit stable, temperature-insensitive piezoelectricity.

Nonswitchable polarization prevents ferroelectric transitions.

Abstract

Using first-principles density functional theory, we study piezoelectricity in short-period superlattices made with combination of ferroelectric and paraelectric components and exhibiting polar discontinuities. We show that piezoelectric response of such a superlattice can be tuned both in terms of sign and magnitude with a choice of its components. As these superlattices with nonswitchable polarization do not undergo ferroelectric transitions, we predict them to exhibit a robust piezoelectric response with weaker temperature dependence compared to their bulk counterparts.