Phenomenological modeling of phase transitions and electrocaloric effect in Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3-(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3

Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O-3-x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (BZT-xBCT) is a promising lead-free ferroelectric system. In this paper, we present two sets of free energy coefficients and carry out phenomenological modeling to study the phase transition and electrocaloric effect. The calculated phase diagram is in excellent quantitative agreement with experiments. Furthermore, we propose a new method based on effective internal electric field to simulate polarization in the macroscopic paraelectric state of ferroelectric relaxor. The computed composition and temperature-dependent entropy and temperature change induced by electrocaloric effect are in good agreement with the measured data available for single crystal.