Flash annealing-engineered wafer-scale relaxor antiferroelectrics for enhanced energy storage performance

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid flash annealing process to produce wafer-scale relaxor antiferroelectric films with enhanced energy storage density and thermal stability, suitable for industrial applications.

Contribution

The development of a fast, scalable flash annealing technique that improves microstructure and energy storage performance of relaxor antiferroelectric films.

Findings

Achieved a high energy storage density of 63.5 J/cm3.

Maintained performance with less than 3% degradation up to 250°C.

Produced films with high breakdown strength and nanodomain structures.

Abstract

Dielectric capacitors are essential for energy storage systems due to their high-power density and fast operation speed. However, optimizing energy storage density with concurrent thermal stability remains a substantial challenge. Here, we develop a flash annealing process with ultrafast heating and cooling rates of 1000 oC/s, which facilitates the rapid crystallization of PbZrO3 film within a mere second, while locking its high-temperature microstructure to room temperature. This produces compact films with sub-grain boundaries fraction of 36%, nanodomains of several nanometers, and negligible lead volatilization. These contribute to relaxor antiferroelectric film with a high breakdown strength (4800 kV/cm) and large polarization (70 uC/cm2). Consequently, we have achieved a high energy storage density of 63.5 J/cm3 and outstanding thermal stability with performance degradation less than 3% up to 250 oC. Our approach is extendable to ferroelectrics like Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 and on wafer scale, providing on-chip nonlinear dielectric energy storage solutions with industrial scalability.