Phase-pure antiferroelectric AgNbO₃ films on Si substrates: chemical solution deposition and phase transitions

Abstract

AgNbO3-based antiferroelectric films have aroused emerging attention in the field of dielectric energy storage, and possess promising applications in photocatalysis and microwave devices. Unfortunately, it remains a challenge to fabricate...

Achieving a high energy storage density in Ag(Nb,Ta)O 3 antiferroelectric films via nanograin engineering

“…[24,34]. This is in agreement with the reported XRD results by Shu et al [25] on sol-gel-processed AgNbO 3 films under unoptimized conditions. On the other hand, these impurity phases were eliminated in the RTA-processed film ANT 700-RTA , as can be seen from its XRD pattern in Fig.…”

“…The appearance of these impurity phases can be attributed to the decomposition of the perovskite structure and the formation of reduced Ag and Ag-deficient Ag 2 Nb 4 O 11[24,34]. This is in agreement with the reported XRD results by Shu et al[25] on sol-gel-processed AgNbO 3 films under unoptimized conditions. On the other hand, these impurity phases were eliminated in the RTA-processed film ANT 700-RTA , as can be seen from its XRD pattern in Fig.1.…”

“…These P-E loops display a delayed polarization saturation and hence improved energy storage performance (higher W rec and ). Specifically, when a low electric field was applied, the ANT 700-RTA film showed an almost linear P-E curve, typical of an AFE material [13,25]. With an increasing electric field, the ANT 700-RTA film showed a remarkable increase in its polarization and a gradual trend towards polarization saturation, leading to a slim P-E hysteresis loop.…”

“…So far, most studies on energy storage AgNbO 3 materials have been focusing on their bulk ceramics [18][19][20][21][22][23]. The scarce of studies on AgNbO 3 for highenergy-density capacitor films may be attributed to the tendency to form secondary phases (Ag and Ag 2 Nb 4 O 11 ) in film deposition processing [24,25], which deprived AgNbO 3 films of a high breakdown field (E b ). Therefore, although the AgNbO 3 films were successfully fabricated as early as 2000 [26], most of the reports were not tailored for energy storage applications.…”

“…Therefore, although the AgNbO 3 films were successfully fabricated as early as 2000 [26], most of the reports were not tailored for energy storage applications. These films either showed very small polarization values (P max < 10 C•cm −2 ) under a small applicable electric field (< ~0.1 MV•cm −1 ) [25,26] or a quick saturation of polarization (P max  P S  30 C•cm −2 ) under an intermediate electric field (< ~0.4 MV•cm −1 ) [27]. Most recently, Zhang et al [28] prepared the AgNbO 3 films on (001) SrTiO 3 single crystal substrates via an optimized pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process; the E b of over 0.6 MV•cm −1 was achieved, and the recoverable energy density (W rec ) was about ~5.8 J•cm −3 .…”