Oxide crystal ceramics are commonly hard and brittle, when they are bent they typically fracture. Such mechanical response limits the use of these materials in emerging fields like wearable electronics. Here, a polymer-induced assembly strategy is reported to construct orderly assembled TiO₂ crystals into continuous nanofibers that are stretchable, bendable, and even knottable. Ball-milling the spinning sol and curved-drafting the electrospun nanofibers significantly improve the molecular structural order and reduce pore defects in the precursor nanofibers. Using this method, continuous TiO₂ nanofibers, in which orderly assembled TiO₂ nanocrystals (brick) are connected by twin grain boundaries or an amorphous region (mortar), are formed after sintering. Mechanical measurements and finite element analysis simulation indicate that the dislocation slip of “bricks” and the elastic deformation of “mortar” render the nanofibers with a small bending rigidity of ≈22 mN and a small elastic modulus of ≈20.8 Gpa, thus displaying properties associated with both soft and hard matter. More importantly, the reported approach can be easily extended to synthesize a wide range of soft, yet tough ceramic membranes, such as ZrO₂ and SiO₂.

中文翻译：

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氧化物陶瓷晶体纳米纤维的卓越柔韧性

氧化物晶体陶瓷通常硬而脆，当它们弯曲时通常会断裂。这种机械响应限制了这些材料在可穿戴电子产品等新兴领域的使用。在这里，据报道，聚合物诱导组装策略将有序组装的 TiO ₂晶体构建成可拉伸、可弯曲甚至可打结的连续纳米纤维。球磨纺丝溶胶和弯曲电纺纳米纤维显着改善了分子结构秩序并减少了前体纳米纤维中的孔隙缺陷。使用这种方法，连续的 TiO ₂纳米纤维，其中有序组装的 TiO ₂纳米晶体（砖）通过孪晶界或非晶区（砂浆）连接，在烧结后形成。力学测量和有限元分析模拟表明，“砖”的位错滑移和“砂浆”的弹性变形使纳米纤维具有约 22 mN 的小弯曲刚度和约 20.8 Gpa 的小弹性模量，从而显示出相关的特性软物质和硬物质。更重要的是，报道的方法可以很容易地扩展到合成范围广泛的柔软而坚韧的陶瓷膜，如 ZrO ₂和 SiO ₂。