Observation of solid-state bidirectional thermal conductivity switching in antiferroelectric lead zirconate (PbZrO3)

Abstract

Materials with tunable thermal properties enable on-demand control of temperature and heat flow, which is an integral component in the development of solid-state refrigeration, energy scavenging, and thermal circuits. Although gap-based and liquid-based thermal switches that work on the basis of mechanical movements have been an effective approach to control the flow of heat in the devices, their complex mechanisms impose considerable costs in latency, expense, and power consumption. As a consequence, materials that have multiple solid-state phases with distinct thermal properties are appealing for thermal management due to their simplicity, fast switching, and compactness. Thus, an ideal thermal switch should operate near or above room temperature, have a simple trigger mechanism, and offer a quick and large on/off switching ratio. In this study, we experimentally demonstrate that manipulating phonon scattering rates can switch the thermal conductivity of antiferroelectric PbZrO3 bidirectionally by −10% and +25% upon applying electrical and thermal excitation, respectively. Our approach takes advantage of two separate phase transformations in PbZrO3 that alter the phonon scattering rate in different manners. In this study, we demonstrate that PbZrO3 can serve as a fast (<1 second), repeatable, simple trigger, and reliable thermal switch with a net switching ratio of nearly 38% from ~1.20 to ~1.65 W m−1 K−1.

Large Thermal Conductivity Switching in Ferroelectrics by Electric Field-Triggered Crystal Symmetry Engineering

“…Figure a compares the switching ratio of thermal conductivity in this work and previous reports ,,,,− for FE materials. Note that the ratios in PbTiO 3 (navy leftward triangles) and BiFeO 3 (pink downward triangles) were obtained by the substrate strain engineering, which makes it difficult to realize reversible switching.…”

“…(a) Comparison of thermal conductivity switching ratio with the l –λ criterion in this work and previous reports. ,,,,− (b) Application of 50/50 PZT as a thermal switch for the temperature control of the Li-ion battery. In the OFF state, 50/50 PZT has a low thermal conductivity while in the ON state, 50/50 PZT has a high thermal conductivity.…”

Giant Manipulation of Phonon Hydrodynamics in Ferroelectric Bilayer Boron Nitride at Room Temperature and Beyond

“…When an electric field is applied, more charges are induced around the nitrogen atoms, leading to phonon renormalization and the modulation of phonon anharmonicity through interatomic electrostatic interaction. Regarding the possibility of experimental implementation, the time-domain thermoreflectance technique could be used to measure the thermal transport properties under applied electric fields. − Therefore, the results gained from this work unveil a new route of manipulating phonon hydrodynamics in ferroelectric materials at room temperature and beyond without affecting atomic structures, which provide an important guidance for designing layered materials with dynamically controllable thermal transport properties.…”

Active and switchable thermal control

“…Ferroelectric (FE) materials are one promising material system for thermal switching, as they have short switching time, wide range of working temperature, and large number of switching cycles. However, existing experimental studies on PbZr 0.3 Ti 0.7 O 3 , PbTiO 3 , and PbZrO 3 films [1,2] showed that the switching ratios of these FE materials are always less than 2 at room temperature. Recently, theoretical calculations have indicated that by employing crystal symmetry engineering, the thermal switching ratio of FE materials can be enhanced to 8.6 [3].…”

“…Thus, one efficient strategy to improve the thermal switching performance is to modulate more than one parameter or to combine more than one modulation. The recent reports on combining structural phase transitions (C and v) and domain wall density changes (τ) [8], as well as antiferroelectric-ferroelectric and antiferroelectric-paraelectric phase transitions [2], indicate the potential of this strategy. For the other three factors, the properties of the material itself usually play a dominant role.…”