Energy storage in lead-free Ba(Zr, Ti)O3 relaxor ferroelectrics: Large densities and efficiencies and their origins

An atomistic first-principles-based effective Hamiltonian is used to investigate energy storage in Ba(Zr0.5Ti0.5)O-3 relaxor ferroelectrics, both in their bulk and epitaxial films' forms, for electric fields applied along different crystallographic directions. We find that the energy density linearly increases with temperature for electric fields applied along the pseudocubic [001], [110], and [111] directions in Ba(Zr0.5Ti0.5)O-3 bulk. For films at room temperature, the energy density adopts different behaviors (i.e., increase versus decrease) with strain depending on the direction of the applied electric fields. We also predicted ultrahigh energy densities (basically larger than 100 J/cm(3)) with an ideal efficiency of 100% in all these Ba(Zr0.5Ti0.5)O-3 systems. In addition, a phenomenological model is used to reveal the origin of all the aforementioned features, and should be applicable to other relaxor ferroelectrics.