Piezoelectricity, the two-way coupling between electric polarization and strain is the basic mechanism behind most electromechanical transduction technologies. It is possible only in a limited number of materials, namely ...

Flexoelectricity is a very common phenomenon in dielectrics and is a size-dependent electromechanical mechanism coupling polarization and strain gradient. Flexoelectric effect is significant due to higher strain gradients ...

We will study the effect of flexoelectricity in the electromechanical response of nanobeams under torsion.

This PhD thesis focuses on the development of mathematical and computational models for flexoelectricity, a relatively new electromechanical coupling that is present in any dielectric at the micron and sub-micron scales. ...

The unique electro-mechanical coupling properties of ferroelectrics make them ideal materials for use in micro-devices as sensors, actuators and transducers. Nevertheless, because of the intrinsic brittleness of ferroelectrics, ...

In this thesis, a model to describe the flexophotovoltaic effect is formulated by coupling the flexoelectricity equations with the drift-diffusion current equations. The resulting system of non-linear PDEs is numerically ...

Fracture mechanics of brittle materials has focused on bulk materials with isotropic surface energy. In this situation different physical principles for crack path selection are very similar or even equivalent. The situation ...