Ultrahigh energy storage in superparaelectric relaxor ferroelectrics

By Haowei Pan, Shun Lan, Shiqi Xu, Qinghua Zhang, H. Yao, Yiqian Liu, F. Meng, E. Guo, Lin Gu, Di Yi and 7 more. Science, 2021

640 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Description Minimal domains for maximum energy Dielectric capacitors are important electronic components that can store energy, at least for a short period of time. Pan et al. used phase-field simulations to help determine the right combination of bismuth iron oxide, barium titanium oxide, and samarium doping that is likely to generate a material with excellent dielectric properties (see the Perspective by Chu). The simulations guide a set of experimental measurements showing this system can produce a very high-energy storage by breaking down polar domains to the nanometer scale. These materials could be useful for high-power applications and to suppress failure. —BG Superparaelectric relaxor ferroelectric films have minimal hysteresis loss and ultrahigh energy storage. Electrostatic energy storage technology based on dielectrics is fundamental to advanced electronics and high-power electrical systems. Recently, relaxor ferroelectrics characterized by nanodomains have shown great promise as dielectrics with high energy density and high efficiency. We demonstrate substantial enhancements of energy storage properties in relaxor ferroelectric films with a superparaelectric design. The nanodomains are scaled down to polar clusters of several unit cells so that polarization switching hysteresis is nearly eliminated while relatively high polarization is maintained. We achieve an ultrahigh energy density of 152 joules per cubic centimeter with markedly improved efficiency (>90% at an electric field of 3.5 megavolts per centimeter) in superparaelectric samarium-doped bismuth ferrite–barium titanate films. This superparaelectric strategy is generally applicable to optimize dielectric and other related functionalities of relaxor ferroelectrics.

Subfields: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cf7c6c564aea21f91f1f996541d9cec22c7157fb