The present interest in antiferroelectric materials is mainly based on their double hysteresis loops which allow to optimize the energy density of dielectric capacitors for energy storage devices and is also related to other exceptional functional responses such as large inverse electrocaloric responses.

In this contribution we discuss how double hysteresis loops can be introduced in the standard ferroelectric solid solution (Ba,Sr)TiO₃ by microstructure design.
Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations we screen various defect configurations and inhomogeneities and discuss how the ferroelectric hysteresis may be tailored by depolarization and internal bias fields.