What Has Been Achieved: The IRG team has prepared bulk and thin film embodiments of new high entropy relaxor ferroelectric phases. The formulations are chosen to include different types of disorder: size, valence, electronegativity, etc. The high entropy state extends solubility so that many categories of disorder can be sampled.
Importance of the Achievement: Confirmation of the high entropy concept’s connection to the electrocaloric effect will allow the MRSEC to design new perovskite high entropy materials that maximize the polarization entropy change upon field cycling, and thus the associated temperatures changes. The opportunity is to make electrocaloric refrigeration more efficient, which is hugely important in terms of sustainability concerns. Refrigeration is just behind transportation in terms of global energy consumption.
Unique Feature(s) of the MRSEC/PREM that Enabled this Achievement: Collaborative feature of MRSEC facilitates very active interactions to result in this work. This is the first materials-based publication from which many property, characterization, and computation reports will emerge.
Adv. Electron. Mat. 8 2200352 (2022). DOI: 10.1002/aelm.202200352