Investigations of electrocaloric effect in ferroelectric thin-films, single crystals and devices

Abstract

An electrocaloric (EC) effect is the temperature change accompanied by the change in electric field intensity of a thermally isolated system. The EC effect is relatively new and a challenging research topic in the field of ferroelectric materials. In principle, the EC effect is analogous to magnetocaloric effect, and the latter utilizes magnetic fields to cool. A notable advantage of EC effect is the ease in generating large electric fields compared to magnetic fields. The EC refrigeration of ferroelectric materials is gaining much interest recently in solid-state cooling applications. The cooling method is often described as a clean, robust and efficient process due to its intriguingly simple design and operation. Moreover, an EC cooling device can be more suitable for special needs in medical appliances, hot spot cooling in integrated circuits due to its compactness and low noise performances.