A comprehensive review on the progress of lead zirconate-based antiferroelectric materials

Lead zirconate (PbZrO3 or PZ)-based antiferroelectric (AFE) materials, as a group of important electronic materials, have attracted increasing attention for their potential applications in high energy storage capacitors, micro-actuators, pyroelectric security sensors, cooling devices, and pulsed power generators and so on, because of their novel external electric field-induced phase switching behavior between AFE state and ferroelectric (FE) state. The performances of AFE materials are strongly dependent on the phase transformation process, which are mainly determined by the constitutions and the external field. For AFE thin/thick films, the electrical properties are also strongly dependent on their thickness, crystal orientation and the characteristics of electrode materials. Accordingly, various strategies have been employed to tailor the phase transformation behavior of AFE materials in order to improve their performances. Due to their relatively poor electrical strength (low breakdown fields), most PZ-based orthorhombic AFE ceramics are broken down before a critical switching field can be applied. As a consequence, the electric-field-induced transition between AFE and FE phase of only those AFE bulk ceramics, with compositions within tetragonal region near the AFE/FE morphotropic phase boundary (MPB), can be realized experimentally at room temperature. AFE materials with such compositions include (Pb,A)ZrO3 (A = Ba, Sr), (Pb1−3/2xLax)(Zr1−yTiy)O3 (PLZT x/(1−y)/y), (Pb0.97La0.02)(Zr,Sn,Ti)O3 (PLZST) and Pb0.99(Zr,Sn,Ti)0.98Nb0.02O3 (PNZST). As compared to bulk ceramics, AFE thin and thick films always display better electric-field endurance ability. Consequently, room temperature electric-field-induced AFE–FE phase transition could be observed in the AFE thin/thick films with orthorhombic structures. Moreover, AFE films are more easily integrated with silicon technologies. Therefore, AFE thin/thick films have been a subject of numerous researches. This review serves to summarize the recent progress of PZ-based AFE materials, focusing on the external field (electric field, hydrostatic pressure and temperature) dependences of the AFE–FE phase transition, with a specific attention to the performances of AFE films for various potential applications, such as high energy storage, electric field induced strains, pyroelectric effect and electrocaloric effect.