Controllable semiconductor flexoelectricity by interface engineering

Flexoelectricity of semiconductors usually exhibits large flexoelectric coefficients due to their significantly enhanced surface piezoelectricity caused by surface symmetry breaking. In this Letter, we reported a general paradigm to tune the semiconductor flexoelectricity through interface engineering. We selected Nb-SrTiO3 (Nb-STO) single crystals as the targets and tuned their surface piezoelectricity through depositing TiO2-terminated and SrO-terminated ultra-thin BaTiO3 (BTO) films. The results suggested that the deposition of TiO2-terminated and SrO-terminated ultra-thin BaTiO3 films to Nb-STO can induce a downward and upward out-of-plane surface polarization, respectively, thereby significantly increasing/decreasing the apparent flexoelectric coefficients of Nb-STO single crystals. Our work proves the feasibility of interface engineering in the application of flexoelectricity and also provides a possible route to achieve the large apparent flexoelectricity of semiconductor materials.