Abstract
Ferroelectric thin-films are highly desirable for their applications on energy conversion, data storage and so on. Molecular ferroelectrics had been expected to be a better candidate compared to conventional ferroelectric ceramics, due to its simple and low-cost film-processability. However, most molecular ferroelectrics are mono-polar-axial, and the polar axes of the entire thin-film must be well oriented to a specific direction to realize the macroscopic ferroelectricity. To align the polar axes, an orientation-controlled single-crystalline thin-film growth method must be employed, which is complicated, high-cost and is extremely substrate-dependent. In this work, we discover a new molecular ferroelectric of quinuclidinium periodate, which possesses six-fold rotational polar axes. The multi-axes nature allows the thin-film of quinuclidinium periodate to be simply prepared on various substrates including flexible polymer, transparent glasses and amorphous metal plates, without considering the crystallinity and crystal orientation. With those benefits and excellent ferroelectric properties, quinuclidinium periodate shows great potential in applications like wearable devices, flexible materials, bio-machines and so on.
Highlights
Ferroelectric thin-films are highly desirable for their applications on energy conversion, data storage and so on
As most of molecular ferroelectrics are mono-polar-axial, which means the polarization can only be switched to two specific directions, the thin-film must be prepared with specific crystallographic orientation to maximize the effective polarization
For temperature above the phase-transition temperature (Tc), 1 is in the high-temperature phase (HTP), which is in the cubic space group Pm3m. a 1⁄4 6.437(8) Å
Summary
Ferroelectric thin-films are highly desirable for their applications on energy conversion, data storage and so on. Studies on molecular ferroelectrics achieved great improvement and a series of new compounds have been discovered with spontaneous polarization and transition-temperature comparable or superior to those of inorganics[7,8,9,10,11] Despite those advantages, in the aspect of practical applications, realization of macroscopic ferroelectricity on molecular thin-films is still challenging. Taking advantages of the six-fold polar axes and 12 polarization states, we have successful demonstrated macroscopic ferroelectric polarization reversal on thin-film samples prepared by simple aqueous solution process Such ferroelectricity does not require any orientation-controlled growth on specific substrate, which provide 1 great feasibility on making thin-film devices on various substrates, including flexible polymers. This discovery might open a new avenue for the device applications of molecular ferroelectrics, especially in flexible devices, wearable electronics, micromechanics and so on
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