Large electrocaloric effect and wide working area in the transition from ferroelectric to nanodomains
Haoran Feng, Minghui Hao, Guanghua Wu, Ying Zheng, Lishun Yang, Xin Liu, Xin Liu, Yiwen Zhao, Xiaoyan Liu, Xiaoyan Liu, Haibo Zhang, Gang Liu
Abstract
Abstract A large adiabatic temperature change along with a wide operating temperature region is usually required for the electrocaloric materials to fulfill their refrigeration function. In general, doping foreign ions into BaTiO 3 is the frequently utilized strategy in order to obtain excellent electrocaloric materials for the practical application. In the current paper, BaTiO 3 lead‐free ferroelectric ceramics were doped by Ca 2+ and Sn 4+ simultaneously in order to generate a coexistence state at room temperature, where ferroelectric domains and nanodomains exit. As a result, a large polarization and a wide operating temperature range were finally induced. It is found that Ba 0.9 Ca 0.1 Ti 0.85 Sn 0.15 O 3 has a maximum adiabatic temperature change of 0.85 K and an excellent working temperature region (65 K, ∆ T > 90% T max ) was achieved under an electric field of 50 kV/cm. The above phenomenon indicates that the modified BaTiO 3 ceramics can be a good potential electrocaloric material in the state of cross‐existence of ferroelectric domains and nanodomains.