Organic ferroelectrics are increasingly important due to their complementary properties to classical, inorganic ferroelectrics. Flexibility, chemical resistance, scalability, high breakdown fields, and biocompatibility are attractive for many applications like energy harvesting and storage. The most known energy harvesting methods are piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric. Here, we apply the well-established material's figures of merit to five polyvinylidenefluoride-based compositions ranging from ferroelectric to relaxor-like behavior to emphasize the importance of several key material parameters contributing to the maximal power output of energy harvesting devices. Afterward, we discuss the possibility of the same functional material storing the output energy for the development of scalable multifunctional devices.
Multiferroic materials have attracted significant research attention due to their technological potential for applications as multifunctional devices. The scarcity of single-phase multiferroics and their low inherent coupling between multiferroic order parameters above room temperature pose a challenge to their further applications. We propose a 3BiFeO3/7BaTiO3 perovskite–perovskite composite that combines ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism. We demonstrate that the sintering temperature can tailor the ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism of the composites. The multiferroicity can be achieved at a low sintering temperature in the composite-like structure ceramics, and its multiferroic properties, especially the ferromagnetism, are superior to those of solid solutions. We also investigate the dynamic evolution of multiferroicity with sintering temperature. We adopt a nano–micro strategy to construct a composite-like microstructure, which results in optimized ferroelectric (1.62 μC cm−2) and ferromagnetic (0.16 emu/g) characteristics at a sintering temperature of 750 °C. We also found experimental evidence of the competition between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interactions in the transition metal cation sublattice. Multiferroic BiFeO3/BaTiO3 composites with combined ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties have significant potential for various applications.
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