Nanocharacterization of the negative stiffness of ferroelectric materials

Phase changing materials such as ferroelectric materials could exhibit negative stiffness under certain thermomechanical environments. This negative stiffness is embodied by a deflection along the opposite direction of the applied load. So far negative stiffness materials were investigated with the specific morphology of embedded inclusions in stiff matrices then the resulting composite is studied to measure the behavior of each constituent indirectly. In this study, a modified nonisothermal nanoindentation method is developed to measure the negative stiffness of triglycine sulfate single crystal directly. This in-situ method is intended to first demonstrate the feasibility of detecting the negative stiffness via nanoindentation and nanocreep of a ferroelectric material at its Curie point and then to quantify the negative stiffness without the need for embedding the crystal within a stiffer matrix.