Antiferroelectric ceramic capacitors with high energy-storage densities and reduced sintering temperature

Field-driven transition from antiferroelectric (AFE) to ferroelectric (FE) states has gained extensive attention for microelectronics and energy storage applications. High dielectric-breakdown-strength (DBDS) for a given material is a necessity to attain full capacity of electrical energy storage . An approach to increasing energy performances is to modulate the related materials to own a higher phase transition electric field ( E FE-AFE ) using elemental dopants . In this case, Cd 2+ was selected as the dopant at A-site in the Pb 0.97 La 0.02 Zr 0.50 Sn 0.45 Ti 0.05 O 3 ceramics to tailor this E FE-AFE value due to the ionic difference enhanced antiferroelectricity. Surprisingly, the doped ceramics increased E FE-AFE by half, DBDS by 16 %, and maintained energy storage efficiency η of over 85 %, providing a way to improve energy storage density. It is worth mentioning that while the performance has been improved, the sintering temperature has been reduced by 170 °C. At the same time, the ceramics maintain good temperature stability, extremely fast discharging speed and discharging energy storage density, indicative of a promising choice in pulse power devices.