Tripling energy storage density through order-disorder transition induced polar nanoregions in PbZrO3 thin films by ion implantation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that inducing polar nanoregions in PbZrO3 thin films via ion implantation significantly enhances energy storage density and breakdown strength, overcoming previous trade-offs in dielectric capacitors.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel ion implantation method to induce order-disorder transitions, creating polar nanoregions that triple energy storage density in PbZrO3 thin films.

Findings

Energy storage density increased from 20.5 to 62.3 J/cm³.

Breakdown strength was greatly enhanced.

Method can be applied to other dielectric oxides.

Abstract

Dielectric capacitors are widely used in pulsed power electronic devices due to their ultrahigh power densities and extremely fast charge/discharge speed. To achieve enhanced energy storage density, both maximum polarization (Pmax) and breakdown strength (Eb) need to be improved simultaneously. However, these two key parameters are inversely correlated. In this study, order-disorder transition induced polar nanoregions (PNRs) have been achieved in PbZrO3 thin films by making use of the low-energy ion implantation, enabling us overcome the trade-off between high polarizability and breakdown strength, which leads to the tripling of the energy storage density from 20.5 J/cm3 to 62.3 J/cm3 as well as the great enhancement of breakdown strength. This approach could be extended to other dielectric oxides to improve the energy storage performance, providing a new pathway for tailoring the oxide functionalities.