Computational modeling of uniaxial antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like actuators

Recently, antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like materials have regained interest in electronic devices, such as field-effect transistors, memory, and transducers. Particularly in micro/nano-electromechanical coupling systems such as actuators, these innovative materials, with their peculiar phase transition between antiferroelectric and ferroelectric phases, show promise in offering large electro-strain, fast response, and low power consumption devices. However, compared to numerous computational models of ferroelectric actuators, numerical modeling of antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like actuators remains relatively unexplored. In this paper, we propose a phenomenological model of uniaxial antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like actuators based on their switching polarization behavior. Specifically, both the double hysteresis loop of antiferroelectric materials and the pinched hysteresis loop of antiferroelectric-like materials can be captured by two hyperbolic tangent functions. This allows us to cast a polarization-dependent strain and piezoelectric tensor into the constitutive laws. The proposed model is then implemented into a finite element framework, in which the voltage-induced deformation can be solved using the Newton–Raphson procedure. Numerical examples of both antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like actuators are illustrated and compared with experimental data, showing our proposed model can serve as a useful tool for the design and development of antiferroelectric and antiferroelectric-like actuators.