Structure-evolution-designed amorphous oxides for dielectric energy storage

Recently, rapidly increased demands of integration and miniaturization continuously challenge energy densities of dielectric capacitors. New materials with high recoverable energy storage densities become highly desirable. Here, by structure evolution between fluorite HfO₂ and perovskite hafnate, we create an amorphous hafnium-based oxide that exhibits the energy density of ~155 J/cm³ with an efficiency of 87%, which is state-of-the-art in emergingly capacitive energy-storage materials. The amorphous structure is owing to oxygen instability in between the two energetically-favorable crystalline forms, in which not only the long-range periodicities of fluorite and perovskite are collapsed but also more than one symmetry, i.e., the monoclinic and orthorhombic, coexist in short range, giving rise to a strong structure disordering. As a result, the carrier avalanche is impeded and an ultrahigh breakdown strength up to 12 MV/cm is achieved, which, accompanying with a large permittivity, remarkably enhances the energy storage density. Our study provides a new and widely applicable platform for designing high-performance dielectric energy storage with the strategy exploring the boundary among different categories of materials.