Tunable antiferroelectric ceramic polarization via regulating incommensurate phase and domain features

Abstract

Due to the high demand for dielectric materials with high energy density, the energy storage performance of antiferroelectric ceramic capacitors has always gained much attention. Polarization intensity is a key factor that is closely related to the energy storage density. However, thus far, there has been a lack of research studies or successful methods to effectively modulate polarization intensity. The behavior of the polarization process is complex and contains domain nucleation, growth, and flip-flapping. Based on this finding, the introduction of Nb5+ at the B-site was designed to influence the three stages of antiferroelectric polarization by regulating the balance between the ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases, and eventually realized regulation of the saturation polarization intensity in the (Pb1-1.5xLax)(Zr0.5Sn0.43Ti0.07)O3 antiferroelectric ceramics. The saturation polarization intensity has increased from 25.56 to 42 μC/cm2 with Nb5+ content increases from 0 to 4 mol% and the hysteresis was kept low, Pb0.94La0.04(Zr0.65Sn0.35)0.975Nb0.02O3 is the optimal component with a high releasable energy density of 8.26 J/cm3 and an energy storage efficiency of 90.31%. This work provides an in-depth explanation of the microscopic mechanism of antiferroelectric ceramic polarization and presents a novel approach for the composition design of high-energy storage density antiferroelectric ceramics.