Negative Longitudinal Piezoelectricity Coexisting with both Negative and Positive Transverse Piezoelectricity in a Hybrid Formate Perovskite

Negative longitudinal piezoelectric response is a rare property, which has been found mostly in inorganic materials. We use first-principles density functional theory simulations to predict such an unusual response in [NH₂NH₃]Co(HCOO)₃ ─a representative of a large family of hybrid organic-inorganic formate perovskites. A feature that sets aside [NH₂NH₃]Co(HCOO)₃ from inorganic compounds with a negative longitudinal piezoelectric response is that this rare property coexists with both negative and positive transverse piezoelectric responses, which is highly desirable for tunable applications. Atomistic analysis reveals that this unusual electromechanical coupling originates from the high anisotropy of materials response to uniaxial stress. Such a deformation produces oxygen octahedral tilts in the framework, whose magnitude depends strongly on the direction of the applied strain. For hard directions, the tilts make the dominant contribution to the deformation-induced change in polarization, while for the softer direction, it is the tilts of the NH₂NH₃⁺ cation that dominate the polarization response. The latter occur as the complex hydrogen bond network responds to the octahedral tilts. As high anisotropy of mechanical properties is a common feature across the formate perovskites, we expect our findings to stimulate more discoveries of unusual electromechanical couplings in this family.