Enhanced electrocaloric effect in displacive-type organic ferroelectrics

Abstract

We explore the intrinsic feature of electrocaloric effect (ECE) accompanied by ferroelectric (FE)-paraelectric (PE) transition for displacive-type organic ferroelectrics using Green's function theory. It is demonstrated that decreasing elastic constant K or increasing spin-lattice coupling λ can enhance the ECE, as well as polarization P and transition temperature TC. Indeed, one expects that the optimal operating temperature for solid-state refrigeration is around room temperature, at which the ECE achieves its maximum. As TC is tuned to ∼310 K, it presents larger ECE response and remanent polarization with lower coercive field for smaller K value, suggesting that well flexible displacive-type organic ferroelectrics are excellent candidates both for electric cooling and data storage in the design of nonvolatile FE random-access memories. Furthermore, in an electric field, it provides a bridge between a Widom line that denotes FE-PE crossover above TC and a metaelectric transition line below TC that demonstrates an FE switching behavior with an antiparallel field.