@Article{icces.2023.09816,
AUTHOR = {Hongxing Shang, Xu Liang, Shengping Shen},
TITLE = {Flexoelectric Polar Patterns in Wrinkled Thin Films},
JOURNAL = {The International Conference on Computational \& Experimental Engineering and Sciences},
VOLUME = {25},
YEAR = {2023},
NUMBER = {1},
PAGES = {1--1},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/icces/v25n1/53784},
ISSN = {1933-2815},
ABSTRACT = {Flexoelectricity is the coupling effect of polarization and strain gradients, which tends to be more 
pronounced in thin films owing to size dependency. When subjected to in-plane compression, a filmsubstrate system will form complex wrinkle morphologies along with large-area and tunable strain 
gradients. The wrinkle-induced strain gradients can locally break the inversion symmetry of dielectrics and 
thus introduce flexoelectric polarization. Here, an electromechanical coupling model is developed to 
theoretically deal with flexoelectric polar patterns in wrinkled thin films. By analyzing the energy 
competition of elastic potential and electrostatic energy, the amplitude, wavelength, and critical strain of the 
wrinkles with flexoelectricity in mind are redefined and the interplay between wrinkles and flexoelectricity 
is studied as well. Numerical and theoretical analyses reveal that wrinkling can trigger in-plane and out-ofplane dipole rotations, endowing the dielectric films with various polar structures, such as polar stripes and 
meron- or anti-meron-like nanodomains. It is also demonstrated that the wrinkle-induced flexoelectric 
polar patterns can be manipulated by compressive strains, offering a voltage-free method for mechanically 
modifying the intrinsic polarity of materials and enabling the conversion of nonpolar materials into polar or 
"piezoelectric-like" materials. Moreover, the results obtained in the current work also show that the 
available energy and stretchability of the wrinkled thin films can be improved by enhanced flexoelectricity 
in thinner films. These findings pave the way for wrinkle-based microelectromechanical devices and 
applications.},
DOI = {10.32604/icces.2023.09816}
}