Tag: PFM

Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling

Piezoelectric biomaterials have attracted great attention owing to the recent recognition of the impact of piezoelectricity on biological systems and their potential applications in implantable sensors, actuators, and energy harvesters. However, their practical use is hindered by the weak piezoelectric effect caused by the random polarization of biomaterials and the challenges of large-scale alignment of domains.*

In the article “Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling” Zhuomin Zhang, Xuemu Li, Zehua Peng, Xiaodong Yan, Shiyuan Liu, Ying Hong, Yao Shan, Xiaote Xu, Lihan Jin, Bingren Liu, Xinyu Zhang, Yu Chai, Shujun Zhang, Alex K.-Y. Jen and Zhengbao Yang present an active self-assembly strategy to tailor piezoelectric biomaterial thin films.*

The nanoconfinement-induced homogeneous nucleation overcomes the interfacial dependency and allows the electric field applied in-situ to align crystal grains across the entire film. The β-glycine films exhibit an enhanced piezoelectric strain coefficient of 11.2 pm V−1 and an exceptional piezoelectric voltage coefficient of 252 × 10−3 Vm N−1. Of particular significance is that the nanoconfinement effect greatly improves the thermostability before melting (192 °C). *

This finding offers a generally applicable strategy for constructing high-performance large-sized piezoelectric bio-organic materials for biological and medical microdevices.*

The piezoelectric properties of the as-prepared β-glycine nanocrystalline films were evaluated by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) measurements.*

For all piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) measurements and SKPM (scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy) measurements mentioned in this article, conductive NanoWorld Arrow-EFM AFM probes with PtIr coating on both AFM cantilever and AFM tip were used. The nominal resonance frequency and the nominal stiffness of the AFM probe are 75 kHz and 2.8 N m−1, respectively.

Figure 3 from “Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling” by Zhuomin Zhang et al.:PFM measurements and polarization alignment studies of β-glycine nanocrystalline films. a The PFM OOP amplitude mapping overlaid on the 3D topography of as-prepared films in a 1.5 × 1.5 µm2 area. The applied AC voltage is 2 V. b The corresponding PFM OOP phase mapping overlaid on the 3D topography. c Histogram calculated from the PFM OOP phase mapping in (b) showing that the β-glycine nanocrystalline films are dominated by domains with the unique polarization direction. d PFM OOP phase mapping of the β-glycine microcrystals obtained by electrohydrodynamic focusing deposition through heterogeneous nucleation. e Histogram calculated from the phase mapping in (d). f Comparison of statistics of the piezoelectric phase for the as-prepared β-glycine nanocrystalline films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling (left), and β-glycine microcrystals grown by heterogeneous nucleation in the absence of nanoconfinement effect (right). NanoWorld conductive Arrow-EFM AFM probes were used for the piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy (SKPFM) measurements mentioned in this article.
Figure 3 from “Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling” by Zhuomin Zhang et al.:
PFM measurements and polarization alignment studies of β-glycine nanocrystalline films.
a The PFM OOP amplitude mapping overlaid on the 3D topography of as-prepared films in a 1.5 × 1.5 µm2 area. The applied AC voltage is 2 V. b The corresponding PFM OOP phase mapping overlaid on the 3D topography. c Histogram calculated from the PFM OOP phase mapping in (b) showing that the β-glycine nanocrystalline films are dominated by domains with the unique polarization direction. d PFM OOP phase mapping of the β-glycine microcrystals obtained by electrohydrodynamic focusing deposition through heterogeneous nucleation. e Histogram calculated from the phase mapping in (d). f Comparison of statistics of the piezoelectric phase for the as-prepared β-glycine nanocrystalline films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling (left), and β-glycine microcrystals grown by heterogeneous nucleation in the absence of nanoconfinement effect (right).

*Zhuomin Zhang, Xuemu Li, Zehua Peng, Xiaodong Yan, Shiyuan Liu, Ying Hong, Yao Shan, Xiaote Xu, Lihan Jin, Bingren Liu, Xinyu Zhang, Yu Chai, Shujun Zhang, Alex K.-Y. Jen and Zhengbao Yang
Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling
Nature Communications volume 14, Article number: 4094 (2023)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39692-y

Please follow this external link to read the full article: https://rdcu.be/dzddh

The article “Active self-assembly of piezoelectric biomolecular films via synergistic nanoconfinement and in-situ poling” by Zhuomin Zhang, Xuemu Li, Zehua Peng, Xiaodong Yan, Shiyuan Liu, Ying Hong, Yao Shan, Xiaote Xu, Lihan Jin, Bingren Liu, Xinyu Zhang, Yu Chai, Shujun Zhang, Alex K.-Y. Jen and Zhengbao Yang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy

Nano-piezoelectric materials such as 1D piezoelectric nanofibers, nanowires, and nanobelts have attracted a lot of research interest in recent years. *

Because of their active property that can transform strain energy into electricity, 1D piezoelectric nano-materials can be building blocks for nano-generators, strain sensors, acoustic sensors, force sensors, biosensors, self-powered drug delivery systems, piezoelectric transistors and other intelligent systems. *

The most important property of these active materials is their ability to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. *

Therefore, researchers started developing nano-sized piezoelectric materials in hope of achieving better piezoelectric properties. *

The characterization of these piezoelectric properties, especially measuring the piezoelectric strain coefficients, remains a challenge. *

The Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)-based method to directly measure nano-materials’ piezoelectric strain coefficients is widely used.

However, several factors such as the extremely small piezoelectric deformation, the influence from the parasitic electrostatic force, and the environmental noise can make the measurement results questionable. *

In the article “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” Guitao Zhang, Xi Chen, Weihe Xu, Wei-Dong Yao, and Yong Shi address these issues by introducing a resonant piezo-force microscopy method and describing how it was used to accurately measure the piezoelectric deformation from 1D piezoelectric nanofibers. *

During the measurement the AFM tip was brought into contact with the piezoelectric sample and set to work close to the AFM tip’s first resonant frequency. *

The AFM probe used in this test was a platinum iridium coated NanoWorld Arrow-CONTPt (typical force constant 0.2 N/m, typical resonant frequency 14 KHz. The PtIr coating makes the AFM tip conductive and at the same time enhances the laser reflection from the detector facing side of the AFM cantilever to the photodetector. *

A lock-in amplifier was used to pick up the sample’s deformation signal at the testing frequency. By using this technique, the piezoelectric strain constant d33 of the Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) nanofiber with a diameter of 76 nm was measured. The result showed that d33 of this PZT nanofiber was around 387 pm/V. Meanwhile, by tracking the piezoelectric deformation phase image, domain structures inside PZT nanofibers were identified. *

Figure 5 from “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” by Guitao Zhang et al. : Piezoelectric deformation amplitude image from a PZT nanofiber on a silicon dioxide substrate (a) and its cross-sectional view along the horizontal direction (b). Conductive NanoWorld Arrow-CONTPt AFM probes were used for the resonant piezo-force microscopy
Figure 5 from “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” by Guitao Zhang et al. :
Piezoelectric deformation amplitude image from a PZT nanofiber on a silicon dioxide substrate (a) and its cross-sectional view along the horizontal direction (b).

 

Figure 6 from “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” by Guitao Zhang et al. : (a) Piezoelectric deformation phase image from a PZT nanofiber on the silicon dioxide substrate and its 3D image (b). NanoWorld Arrow-CONTPt platinum iridium 5 coated AFM probes were used.
Figure 6 from “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” by Guitao Zhang et al. :
(a) Piezoelectric deformation phase image from a PZT nanofiber on the silicon dioxide substrate and its 3D image (b).

*Guitao Zhang, Xi Chen, Weihe Xu, Wei-Dong Yao and Yong Shi
Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy
AIP Advances 12, 035203 (2022)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0081109

The article “Piezoelectric property of PZT nanofibers characterized by resonant piezo-force microscopy” by Guitao Zhang, Xi Chen, Weihe Xu, Wei-Dong Yao and Yong Shi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Quasi-one-dimensional metallic conduction channels in exotic ferroelectric topological defects

Topological objects and defects (e.g. skyrmions, domain walls, vortices,) in condensed matters have attracted a lot of interest as a field for exploring emerging exotic phenomena and functionalities.*

In materials with ferroic order, these topological objects can also be manipulated and controlled by external fields without disrupting their host lattice, making them promising elemental building blocks for potential configurable topological nanoelectronics. *

Ferroelectric topological objects provide a promising area for investigating emerging physical properties that could potentially be utilized in future nanoelectronic devices. *

In the article “Quasi-one-dimensional metallic conduction channels in exotic ferroelectric topological defects” Wenda Yang, Guo Tian, Yang Zhang, Fei Xue, Dongfeng Zheng, Luyong Zhang, Yadong Wang, Chao Chen, Zhen Fan, Zhipeng Hou, Deyang Chen, Jinwei Gao, Min Zeng, Minghui Qin, Long-Qing Chen, Xingsen Gao and Jun-Ming Liu demonstrate the existence of metallic conduction superfine (<3 nm) channels in two types of exotic topological defects, namely a quadrant vortex core or simply vortex core and a quadrant center domain core or simply center core, in an array of BiFeO3 (BFO) nanoislands.*

The authors discover via the phase-field simulation that the superfine metallic conduction channels along the center cores arise from the screening charge carriers confined at the core region, whereas the high conductance of vortex cores results from a field-induced twisted state. These conducting channels can be reversibly created and deleted by manipulating the two topological states via electric field, leading to an apparent electroresistance effect with an on/off ratio higher than 103.*

The findings by Wenda Yang et al. open up the possibility of using these functional one-dimensional topological objects in high-density nanoelectronic devices, e.g. nonvolatile memory.*

NanoWorld PlatinumIdridium5 coated Arrow-EFM AFM probes were used to examine the domain structures by vector piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). By using vector PFM mode, the authors could simultaneously map the vertical and lateral piezoresponse signals from the nanoisland one by one.*

NanoWorld Conductive Diamond coated AFM probes CDT-NCHR were used for the conductive current distribution maps, current–voltage (I–V) measurements that were characterized by conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM).

Fig. 2 from “Quasi-one-dimensional metallic conduction channels in exotic ferroelectric topological defects” by Wenda Yang et al.:
The domain structures and corresponding conductive properties for both a vortex and a center topological states confined in two nanoislands.
a, b PFM and C-AFM images for both a vortex state (a) and a center state (b), the micrographs from the left to the right are PFM vertical phase images illustrating the uniform upward vertical polarization components for both nanoislands, the PFM lateral phase images recorded at sample rotation of 0o and 90o to evaluate the directions of lateral polarization components respectively along x axis ([100] axis) and y axis ([100] axis), the lateral polarization vector direction maps derived from the PFM data, and corresponding C-AFM maps. The thick arrows aside the PFM images mark the directions of the cantilever for each PFM scan, and the fine arrows inside the images mark the directions of polarization components perpendicular to the directions of the cantilever. c, d Extracted current spatial profiles from the C-AFM maps for both the vortex (c) and the center (d) cores, extracted from a and b, respectively. The inserts in c and d illustrate the C-AFM maps and schematic local polarization configurations for the two topological cores. e Temperature-dependent conductive current (I–V) curves for both topological cores and domain walls.*

*Wenda Yang, Guo Tian, Yang Zhang, Fei Xue, Dongfeng Zheng, Luyong Zhang, Yadong Wang, Chao Chen, Zhen Fan, Zhipeng Hou, Deyang Chen, Jinwei Gao, Min Zeng, Minghui Qin, Long-Qing Chen, Xingsen Gao and Jun-Ming Liu
Quasi-one-dimensional metallic conduction channels in exotic ferroelectric topological defects
Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 1306 (2021)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21521-9

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Open Access : The article “Quasi-one-dimensional metallic conduction channels in exotic ferroelectric topological defects” by Wenda Yang, Guo Tian, Yang Zhang, Fei Xue, Dongfeng Zheng, Luyong Zhang, Yadong Wang, Chao Chen, Zhen Fan, Zhipeng Hou, Deyang Chen, Jinwei Gao, Min Zeng, Minghui Qin, Long-Qing Chen, Xingsen Gao and Jun-Ming Liu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.