P. Vales-Castro, R. Faye, M.Vellvehi, Y.Nouchokgwe, X. Perpiñà, J.M.Caicedo, X. Jordà, K. Roleder, D. Kajewski, A. Perez-Tomas, E. Defay, G. Catalan

Physical Review B

We have studied the electrocaloric response of the archetypal antiferroelectric PbZrO3 as a function of voltage and temperature in the vicinity of its antiferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition. Large electrocaloric effects of opposite signs, ranging from an electrocooling of −3.5 K to an electroheating of +5.5 K, were directly measured with an infrared camera. We show by calorimetric and electromechanical measurements that the large negative electrocaloric effect comes from an endothermic antiferroelectric-ferroelectric switching, in contrast to dipole destabilization of the antiparallel lattice, previously proposed as an explanation for the negative electrocaloric effect of antiferroelectrics.

Link DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.103.054112