The work at ICN2 was funded by an ERC Starting Grant from the EU (Project No. 308023), a National Plan grant from Spain (FIS2013-48668-C2-1-P) and the Severo Ochoa Excellence programme. The work at Cornell University was supported by the National Science Foundation (Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems) under grant number EEC-1160504. The authors thank E. Cuche, J. Parent, E. Solanas and Y. Emery for discussions.

Flexoelectricity allows a dielectric material to polarize in response to a mechanical bending moment and, conversely, to bend in response to an electric field. Compared with piezoelectricity, flexoelectricity is a weak effect of little practical significance in bulk materials. However, the roles can be reversed at the nanoscale. Here, we demonstrate that flexoelectricity is a viable route to lead-free microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems. Specifically, we have fabricated a silicon-compatible thin-film cantilever actuator with a single flexoelectrically active layer of strontium titanate with a figure of merit (curvature divided by electric field) of 3.33MV â '1, comparable to that of state-of-the-art piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers.