资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Transparent piezoelectrics are highly desirable for numerous hybrid ultrasound-optical devices ranging from photoacoustic imaging transducers to transparent actuators for haptic applications(1-7). However, it is challenging to achieve high piezoelectricity and perfect transparency simultaneously because most high-performance piezoelectrics are ferroelectrics that contain high-density light-scattering domain walls. Here, through a combination of phase-field simulations and experiments, we demonstrate a relatively simple method of using an alternating-current electric field to engineer the domain structures of originally opaque rhombohedral Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) crystals to simultaneously generate near-perfect transparency, an ultrahigh piezoelectric coefficient d(33) (greater than 2,100 picocoulombs per newton), an excellent electromechanical coupling factor k(33) (about 94 per cent) and a large electro-optical coefficient gamma(33) (approximately 220 picometres per volt), which is far beyond the performance of the commonly used transparent ferroelectric crystal LiNbO3. We find that increasing the domain size leads to a higher d(33) value for the [001]-oriented rhombohedral PMN-PT crystals, challenging the conventional wisdom that decreasing the domain size always results in higher piezoelectricity(8-10). This work presents a paradigm for achieving high transparency and piezoelectricity by ferroelectric domain engineering, and we expect the transparent ferroelectric crystals reported here to provide a route to a wide range of hybrid device applications, such as medical imaging, self-energy-harvesting touch screens and invisible robotic devices.

Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) are a diverse family of microporous inorganic solids, known for their gas storage ability(1), metal-ion immobilization(2), proton conduction(3), and stimuli-dependent magnetic(4,5), electronic(6) and optical(7) properties. This family of materials includes the double-metal cyanide catalysts(8,9) and the hexacyanoferrate/ hexacyanomanganate battery materials(10,11). Central to the various physical properties of PBAs is their ability to reversibly transport mass, a process enabled by structural vacancies. Conventionally presumed to be random(12,13), vacancy arrangements are crucial because they control micropore-network characteristics, and hence the diffusivity and adsorption profiles(14,15). The long-standing obstacle to characterizing the vacancy networks of PBAs is the inaccessibility of single crystals(16). Here we report the growth of single crystals of various PBAs and the measurement and interpretation of their X-ray diffuse scattering patterns. We identify a diversity of non-random vacancy arrangements that is hidden from conventional crystallographic powder analysis. Moreover, we explain this unexpected phase complexity in terms of a simple microscopic model that is based on local rules of electroneutrality and centrosymmetry. The hidden phase boundaries that emerge demarcate vacancynetwork polymorphs with very different micropore characteristics. Our results establish a foundation for correlated defect engineering in PBAs as a means of controlling storage capacity, anisotropy and transport efficiency.