Science Daily  March 6, 2023 Mechanical flexibility of two-dimensional (2D) materials is shown to bring about unexpected behaviors to the recently discovered monolayer ferroelectrics, especially those displaying normal, off-plane polarization. Researchers at Rice University introduced a “ferro-flexo” coupling term into the energy expression, to account for the connection of ferroelectricity and bending of the layer, to predict and quantify its spontaneous curvature and how it affects the phase transitions. With InP as a representative example, the first-principles calculations revealed strong coupling between the ferroelectric polarization and the curvature of the layer having profound consequences for both mechanics and ferroelectricity of […]