Antiferroelectrics exhibit typical double polarization-electric field and corresponding large strain due to field induced antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transition, providing a solid foundation for important engineering applications in digital displacement transducers, energy storage capacitors, electrocaloric cooling devices, and flat panel displays. Therefore, the antiferroelectric materials, particularly lead-free antiferroelectric counterparts have widespread attention in recent years since proposed in 1951.

NaNbO₃ (NN) is a well-documented antiferroelectric perovskite compound with a complex sequence of polymorphic phase transition with temperature, in which at least two kinds of antiferroelectrics with Pbma (P phase) and Pnma (R phase) space groups were reported in a wide temperature range of -100~480 ^oC. Yet pure NN ceramic shows poor electrical properties. This report mainly focuses on the modulation of antiferroelectricity and antiferroelectric domain structure in NN-based lead free antiferroelectric systems, as a result, a series of high performance NN-based lead-free antiferroelectrics were achieved.