Hidden symmetry of flexoelectric coupling

Abstract

Considering the importance of the flexoelectric coupling for the physical understanding of the gradient-driven couplings in mesoscale and nanoscale solids, one has to determine its full symmetry and numerical values. The totality of available experimental and theoretical information about the flexocoupling tensor symmetry (specifically the amount of measurable independent components) and numerical values is contradictory indicating on a limited understanding of the coupling properties. However the discrepancy between the theory and experiment can be eliminated by consideration all possible inner symmetries of the flexocoupling tensor and physical limits on it components values. Specifically this study reveals the inner "hidden" symmetry of the static flexoelectric tensor that allows minimizing the number of its independent components to the numbers observed experimentally. Revealed hidden symmetry leads to nontrivial physical sequences, namely it affects on the upper limits of the static flexocoupling constants. Also we analyze the dynamic flexoelectric coupling symmetry and established the upper limits for the numerical values of its components. These results can help to understand and quantify the fundamentals of the gradient-type couplings in different solids.