Effect of Ce doping on the electrocaloric effect of SrxBa1−xNb2O6 single crystals

Abstract

The electrocaloric effect (ECE) of SrxBa(1−x)Nb2O6 (SBN100x) single crystals, with a tetragonal tungsten bronze structure and a high ECE near room temperature, is studied by direct measurements. It is shown that although the onset of the ECE peak is closer to room temperature in SBN80 than in SBN75, the effect of the increase of the strontium content is very detrimental to the ECE performances with a decrease to ΔTEC = 0.23 K for SBN80 from the reported value of ΔTEC = 0.42 K under 10 kV/cm for SBN75 [F. Le Goupil et al., “Anisotropy of the electrocaloric effect in lead-free relaxor ferroelectrics,” Adv. Energy Mater. (published online)]. However, when 1.40% of cerium is introduced in SBN61, the temperature of depolarisation is shifted below 30 °C, while an ECE above 0.6 K is maintained over more than 70 K for a low electric field of 28 kV/cm. The maximum ECE ΔTEC = 0.85 K is measured at 61 °C. In addition to having an ECE peak close to room temperature, the ECE measured in Ce-doped SBN61 is comparable with the best reported values for lead-free materials [Y. Bai et al., J. Appl. Phys. 110, 094103 (2011); X.-S. Qian et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 24, 1300 (2014)], when linearly extrapolated to higher electric fields.