Designing lead-free antiferroelectrics for energy storage.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28555655.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms15682 and PMC identifier 5499206.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Dielectric capacitors, although presenting faster charging/discharging rates and better stability compared with supercapacitors or batteries, are limited in applications due to their low energy density. Antiferroelectric (AFE) compounds, however, show great promise due to their atypical polarization-versus-electric field curves. Here we report our first-principles-based theoretical predictions that Bi<sub>1-x</sub>R<sub>x</sub>FeO<sub>3</sub> systems (R being a lanthanide, Nd in this work) can potentially allow high energy densities (100-150 J cm<sup>-3</sup>) and efficiencies (80-88%) for electric fields that may be within the range of feasibility upon experimental advances (2-3 MV cm<sup>-1</sup>). In addition, a simple model is derived to describe the energy density and efficiency of a general AFE material, providing a framework to assess the effect on the storage properties of variations in doping, electric field magnitude and direction, epitaxial strain, temperature and so on, which can facilitate future search of AFE materials for energy storage.