Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 May;17(5):432-438.
doi: 10.1038/s41563-018-0059-8. Epub 2018 Apr 16.

Pyroelectric energy conversion with large energy and power density in relaxor ferroelectric thin films

Affiliations
Free article

Pyroelectric energy conversion with large energy and power density in relaxor ferroelectric thin films

Shishir Pandya et al. Nat Mater. 2018 May.
Free article

Abstract

The need for efficient energy utilization is driving research into ways to harvest ubiquitous waste heat. Here, we explore pyroelectric energy conversion from low-grade thermal sources that exploits strong field- and temperature-induced polarization susceptibilities in the relaxor ferroelectric 0.68Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.32PbTiO3. Electric-field-driven enhancement of the pyroelectric response (as large as -550 μC m-2 K-1) and suppression of the dielectric response (by 72%) yield substantial figures of merit for pyroelectric energy conversion. Field- and temperature-dependent pyroelectric measurements highlight the role of polarization rotation and field-induced polarization in mediating these effects. Solid-state, thin-film devices that convert low-grade heat into electrical energy are demonstrated using pyroelectric Ericsson cycles, and optimized to yield maximum energy density, power density and efficiency of 1.06 J cm-3, 526 W cm-3 and 19% of Carnot, respectively; the highest values reported to date and equivalent to the performance of a thermoelectric with an effective ZT ≈ 1.16 for a temperature change of 10 K. Our findings suggest that pyroelectric devices may be competitive with thermoelectric devices for low-grade thermal harvesting.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

  • More power to pyroelectrics.
    Feser JP, Ravichandran J. Feser JP, et al. Nat Mater. 2018 May;17(5):385-386. doi: 10.1038/s41563-018-0065-x. Nat Mater. 2018. PMID: 29662158 No abstract available.

Publication types