Effect of Stress on Ferroelectric, Energy Storage and Harvesting Properties of 0.4BZT-0.6BCT Ceramics

Abstract

In the present work, the effect of uniaxial stress on ferroelectric properties, energy storage and harvesting is studied for the 0.4Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3-0.6(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (0.4BZT-0.6BCT) ceramics. Therefore, hysteresis loops were measured at different uniaxial compressive stress and temperature. The ferroelectric parameters (maximum polarization, remanent polarization, hysteresis loss and coercive electric field) decrease with an increase in stress. This is because the uniaxial compressive stress depolarizes 0.4BZT-0.6BCT by switching dipole in the energetically favorable direction (generally away from the electric field or poled direction). The maximum recoverable energy storage was found as 73.7 kJ/m3 at 100 °C and 80 MPa. Results show that the uniaxial compressive stress increases the stored energy density by 22% and stored energy efficiency from ~20% to ~38% at 22 °C. The maximum energy harvesting was obtained as 100 kJ/m3 when the cycle was operated between 5–160 MPa and 0.75–2 kV/mm at 22 °C. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.