Direct Observation of Large Flexoelectric Bending at the Nanoscale in Lanthanide Scandates

Large bending of materials can occur at the nanoscale in response to an electric polarization, what is called the flexoelectric effect, but to date this has not been observed directly. We report the direct observation of large flexoelectric bending in [110] oriented DyScO3 inside an electron microscope. We corroborate these observations with independent ex-situ measurements of the flexoelectric coefficient with a three-point bending setup. The relevant flexocoupling voltage was measured to be -42(2) V, which is higher than expected based upon current flexoelectric models.