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. 2022 Sep 30;15(19):6778.
doi: 10.3390/ma15196778.

Microstructural Origin of the High-Energy Storage Performance in Epitaxial Lead-Free Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 Thick Films

Jun Ouyang  1 , Xianke Wang  1 , Changtao Shao  2 , Hongbo Cheng  1 , Hanfei Zhu  1 , Yuhang Ren  3   4
Affiliations

Microstructural Origin of the High-Energy Storage Performance in Epitaxial Lead-Free Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 Thick Films

Jun Ouyang et al. Materials (Basel). .

Abstract

In our previous work, epitaxial Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thick films (~1-2 μm) showed an excellent energy storage performance with a large recyclable energy density (~58 J/cc) and a high energy efficiency (~92%), which was attributed to a nanoscale entangled heterophase polydomain structure. Here, we propose a detailed analysis of the structure-property relationship in these film materials, using an annealing process to illustrate the effect of nanodomain entanglement on the energy storage performance. It is revealed that an annealing-induced stress relaxation led to the segregation of the nanodomains (via detailed XRD analyses), and a degraded energy storage performance (via polarization-electric field analysis). These results confirm that a nanophase entanglement is an origin of the high-energy storage performance in the Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thick films.

Keywords: domain structure; ferroelectric films; lead-free; polymorphic phase boundary (PPB); strain engineering.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
XRD 2θ-scan patterns of (a) the as-grown BZT film (1.25 μm thick); (b) the BZT films annealed at 650 °C and in a pure O2 (1.2 Pa or 10 Pa) atmosphere, in comparison with that of its as-grown state.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The room temperature P-E hysteresis loops (a) and leakage current density–voltage curves (b) of the as-grown and annealed BZT films (in 1.2 Pa and 10 Pa O2).
Figure 3
Figure 3
XRD pole figures (a,b) using the (a) {002} and (b) {111} diffraction peaks of the as-grown BZT film; (c,d) the split (c) {002}T and (d) {002}R peaks of the annealed BZT film (in 10 Pa O2); (insets: top view of of (a–d)).
Figure 4
Figure 4
STEM analysis. Atomic scale HAADF-STEM images from (a) an R phase region and (c) a T phase region of the as-grown BZT film. Corresponding electron diffraction patterns via FFT are shown in (b,d) for the T and R phases, respectively.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) A high-resolution TEM image of the as-grown BZT film with a <−1 1 0> zone axis near the bottom electrode, (b,c) are an FFT electron diffraction pattern from (a) and a schematic drawing for the diffraction pattern (blue dots: {00l}R phase, red dots: (221)T).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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