Field-induced strain engineering to optimize antiferroelectric ceramics in breakdown strength and energy storage performance

The unique filed-induced phase transition makes antiferroelectric (AFE) ceramics naturally advantageous in exploiting advanced capacitors with ideal energy storage performance. However, low breakdown strength (BDS) has become one key restriction on energy storage performance of AFE ceramic and there have fewer research been carried out focused on optimizing breakdown strength with the design strategy based on regulating field-induced strain behavior. Here, we first propose introducing Nd ³⁺ to induce incommensurate modulated AFE phase in Pb _0.98Sr _0.02Zr _0.75Sn _0.25O ₃ (PSrZS) matrix. Benefited from this strategy, the field-induced strain was well dispersed that the strain rate under electric field (strain/electric field) significantly decreased. Accordingly, inducing incommensurate modulated AFE phase in matrix by introducing Nd ³⁺ greatly enhanced the BDS from 350 kV/cm to 540 kV/cm by regulating strain behavior combined with the delayed saturated polarization and significantly optimized several key parameters including hysteresis width and phase-switching field. As a result, outstanding recoverable energy density of 14.21 J/cm ³ accompanying with high efficiency of 87.35% were obtained in 0.03 Nd-doped PSrZS ceramics at 530 kV/cm at room temperature. The actual discharge performance is also prominent. Ultrahigh current density of 2111 A/cm ² and power density of 507 MW/cm ³ were obtained in PSrNd _0.03 ZS ceramics. The sample also exhibited a high discharge energy density of 9.11 J/cm ³ . The great energy storage properties obtained in this work provides a novel strategy to further enhance the energy storage performance and demonstrates the extremely potential of AFE ceramics in exploiting advanced ceramic capacitors for pushing on the miniaturization and integration of electronic devices.