Dielectric behavior and impedance spectroscopy of lead-free Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3 ceramics with B2O3-Al2O3-SiO2 glass-ceramics addition for enhanced energy storage

A series of Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3 (BCZT) ceramics with different contents of B2O3-Al2O3-SiO2 (BAS) glass-ceramics additive were prepared via the conventional solid-state sintering method. The microstructure, dielectric properties, ferroelectric properties and energy storage properties were systematically investigated. The results show that the BCZT and BAS glass-ceramics phases can coexist in the ceramics and the average grain size reduces obviously with increasing the content of BAS glass-ceramics. The addition of BAS glass-ceramics could enhance the breakdown strength of the ceramics obviously. Due to the relatively high dielectric constant and breakdown strength, the estimated energy storage density of the (1-x)BCZT-xBAS ceramics reaches up to 1.153 J/cm3 when x = 5%, which is improved by 5.5 times as compared with that of the pure BCZT ceramic (0.205 J/cm3).