Influence of the composition-induced structure evolution on the electrocaloric effect in Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-based solid solution

The present work investigated the influence of the composition induced structure evolution on the electrocaloric effect in lead-free (0.935−x)Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3–0.065BaTiO3–xSrTiO3 (BNBST, BNBSTx) ceramics. It was found that broad ∆T peak could be observed for all compositions and the electrocaloric strength α (α=ΔTmax/ΔE) in BNBST0.02 could reach as high as 0.27 K mm/kV. The increase of the SrTiO3 concentration led to a shift of ∆Tmax to a lower temperature, resulting in a large near room-temperature electrocaloric strength α of 0.17 K mm/kV in BNBST0.22.