Electrocaloric fatigue of lead magnesium niobate mediated by an electric-field-induced phase transformation
Electrocaloric fatigue, i.e., the degradation of the electrocaloric temperature change of an active material under continuous electric-field cycling, has not been addressed in detail so far, despite the elevated electric fields expected for EC cooling devices. Here, we investigate the electrocaloric...
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Published in | Acta materialia Vol. 169; pp. 275 - 283 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Elsevier Ltd
01.05.2019
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Electrocaloric fatigue, i.e., the degradation of the electrocaloric temperature change of an active material under continuous electric-field cycling, has not been addressed in detail so far, despite the elevated electric fields expected for EC cooling devices. Here, we investigate the electrocaloric fatigue mechanism of a prototype relaxor material, i.e., Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3, by directly measuring its temperature response under device-relevant electric-field conditions. We show that after a critical number of field cycles the temperature of the sample begins to increase dramatically, leading to a significant degradation of the cooling properties. The degradation of cooling properties is investigated using a combination of multiscale characterization techniques, revealing that the origin of the degradation is the increased grain boundary conductance caused by an unexpected electric-field-induced phase transformation to a ferroelectric phase. We further show that this transformation and thus the fatigue can be regulated by careful control of the temperature and electric-field conditions. By revealing a previously unexplored fatigue mechanism, this study provides the first guidelines for the integration of high-performance relaxors into cooling devices.
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ISSN: | 1359-6454 1873-2453 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.actamat.2019.03.017 |