Antiferroelectric materials have recently attracted much attention due to their potential applications in power electronic and energy storage devices. These applications are mostly based on the electric field-induced phase transition from the antiferroelectric (AFE) to ferroelectric (FE) states. The best known lead-free AFE prototype, NaNbO3, is characterized by irreversible phase transition behavior [1], which makes it unsuitable for many phase transition-dependent application scenarios. Moreover, systematic studies of the fundamental mechanisms and effective strategies to make the transition reversible are still lacking.

In this work, the nature of the irreversible phase transition in NaNbO3 is elucidated using a combination of ex situ and in situ electrical and structural characterizations [2,3]. An idea for the new material, (1−x)NaNbO3-xSrSnO3, which exhibits a reversible phase transition, was validated by first-principle calculations and successfully prepared [4]. The newly developed composition was further modified with the knowledge of defect chemistry to achieve a much lower remanent polarization and higher energy storage density, which was confirmed by first-principle calculations.

References

[1] O. Zhelnova et al., Ferroelectrics, 1987, 75, 469-475.

[2] M.-H. Zhang et al., Acta Mater., 2020, 200, 127-135.

[3] M.-H. Zhang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 2021, 118, 132903.

[4] M.-H Zhang et al., Chem. Mater. 2021, 33, 266-274.