Polymer Template Synthesis of Flexible BaTiO3 Crystal Nanofibers

BaTiO 3 crystals are attractive materials due to their high dielectric properties, but they are brittle and inelastic ceramics, which limits their broader applications in emerging fields, such as flexible electronics. A scalable strategy for the fabrication of ultra-flexible crystalline BaTiO 3 nanofiber (NF) films by a sol–gel electrospinning method, followed by a brief calcination, is reported. It facilitates the formation of perovskite BaTiO 3 crystals with intricate grain boundaries at a low temperatures by growing them within polymer NF templates. The ceramic films have a polymer-like softness of 50 mN, a large Young's modulus of 61 MPa, and an elastic strain of 0.9%. Moreover, they have a low density of 28 mg cm −3 and demonstrate superior softness without fracture after deformation. Piezoelectric sensors fabricated based on these films exhibit a high sensitivity of 80 ms with an output voltage of 1.05 V at a pressure of 100 kPa. This approach allows for the large-scale fabrication of flexible BaTiO 3 crystal NF films.