Both high reliability and giant electrocaloric strength in BaTiO₃ ceramics

BaTiO₃ has a giant electrocaloric strength, |ΔT|/|ΔE|, because of a large latent heat and a sharp phase transition. The electrocaloric strength of a new single crystal, as giant as 0.48 K·cm/kV, is twice larger than the previous best result, but it remarkably decreased to 0.18 K·cm/kV after several times of thermal cycles accompanied by alternating electric fields, because the field-induced phase transition and domain switching resulted in numerous defects such as microcracks. The ceramics prepared from nano-sized powders showed a high electrocaloric strength of 0.14 K·cm/kV, comparable to the single crystals experienced electrocaloric cycles, because of its unique microstructure after proper sintering process. Moreover, its properties did not change under the combined effects of thermal cycles and alternating electric fields, i.e. it has both large electrocaloric effect and good reliability, which are desirable for practical applications.