Advanced Functional Materials, Vol.24, No.9, 1300-1305, 2014
Giant Electrocaloric Response Over A Broad Temperature Range in Modifi ed BaTiO 3 Ceramics
A giant electrocaloric effect (ECE) near room temperature is reported in a lead-free bulk inorganic material. By tuning Ba(ZrxTi1-x)O-3 compositions which also exhibit relaxor ferroelectric response to near the invariant critical point, the Ba(ZrxTi1-x)O-3 bulk ceramics at x approximate to 0.2 exhibit a large adiabatic temperature drop of 4.5 K, a large isothermal entropy change of 8 J kg(-1) K-1, and a large EC coefficient (|T-c/E| = 0.52 x 10(-6) KmV(-1) and S/E = 0.93 x 10(-6) J m kg(-1) K-1 V-1) over a 30 K temperature range. These properties added together indicate a general solution of the electrocaloric materials with high performance for practical cooling applications.