Tailored dielectric tunability of alkali niobate-based antiferroelectric/relaxor-ferroelectric composites

High dielectric tunability, low loss and an appropriate level of dielectric permittivity are basic requirements of ferroelectric materials for tunable microwave devices. In this study, 0.96NaNbO₃-0.04CaZrO₃/0.88(K_0.5Na_0.5)NbO₃-0.12SrZrO₃, antiferroelectric/relaxor-ferroelectric composites were designed to tailor dielectric tunability. By tailoring the microstructure of the composites, a high dielectric tunability of 51.78% with a low loss of 0.015 was achieved at the composition ratio of 15/85. The nonlinear behaviours of the composites were explored by Johnson model; with increasing antiferroelectric phase, the contribution of the polarization to the free energy was increased between the antiferroelectric and relaxor-ferroelectric. Furthermore, the high resistance layer at the grain boundary region greatly inhibited the long-term migration of electrons and defective ions (mainly oxygen vacancies) in the composites. Therefore, the dielectric loss was remarkably decreased, and the excellent tunability was still preserved in the composite ceramics.     

High energy-storage performance of lead-free Ba0.4Sr0.6TiO3–Sr0.7Bi0.2TiO3 relaxor-ferroelectric ceramics with ultrafine grain size

Relaxor-ferroelectric (RFE) ceramics possess slender ferroelectric hysteresis loop and low remnant polarization (P_r). They have great potential to provide excellent energy-storage performance as dielectric energy-storage materials. Herein, a lead-free 0.8Ba_0.4Sr_0.6TiO₃–0.2Sr_0.7Bi_0.2TiO₃ (0.8BST–0.2SBT) RFE ceramic with high energy-storage performance has been realized successfully. The addition of Bi³⁺ and increase in Sr²⁺content at the A site of the BST can effectively inhibit the growth of grains for high breakdown strength (E_b). As a result, an ultrafine average grain size of 0.7 μm was obtained in 0.8BST–0.2SBT RFE ceramic, affording a high E_b of 300 kV/cm. Further investigation revealed that the mutual conversion of short-range polar nanoregions and long-range-ordered ferroelectric domains upon application and withdrawal of a 300 kV/cm applied electric field resulted in a high maximum polarization (P_max) of 31 μC/cm² and a low P_r of 2.5 μC/cm². Hence, the 0.8BST–0.2SBT RFE ceramic simultaneously exhibited a high recoverable energy-storage density of 3.3 J/cm³ and a high energy-storage efficiency of 85% at 300 kV/cm. Additionally, a good energy-storage performance was reported over a temperature range of 50°C-120 °C and frequency from 10 to 1000 Hz, making the 0.8BST-0.2SBT RFE ceramic a potential lead-free dielectric energy-storage material.     

Properties of multilayer composite thin films based on morphotropic phase boundary Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3

It has been reported that ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMNT) thin films, with compositions close to the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB), show lower values than those reported for bulk ceramics with the same composition, which has been attributed to a reduction of the remnant polarization caused by the small size of the grains in the films. An alternative has been proposed to take full advantage of the excellent piezoelectric properties of polycrystalline PMNT in thin film form: a multilayer configuration that uses ferroelectric layers with large remnant polarization, in this case PbTiO₃, to generate an internal electric bias within the PMNT layers and, thus, anchor an induced polarization on them, resulting in a consequent large piezoelectric behavior. The detailed study of the properties of these multilayer composite films reveals the complex correlations that arise in these heterostructures, which are key for the design of optimized piezoelectric films based on MPB PMNT.