High‐energy storage density and excellent temperature stability in antiferroelectric/ferroelectric bilayer thin films

Abstract The antiferroelectric/ferroelectric (PbZrO 3 /PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 ) bilayer thin films were fabricated on a Pt(111)/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrate using sol‐gel method. PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 layer acts as a buffered layer and template for the crystallization of PbZrO 3 layer. The PbZrO 3 layer with improved quality can share the external voltage due to its smaller dielectric constant and thinner thickness, resulting in the enhancements of electric field strength and energy storage density for the PbZrO 3 /PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 bilayer thin film. The greatly improved electric breakdown strength value of 2615 kV/cm has been obtained, which is more than twice the value of individual PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 film. The enhanced energy storage density of 28.2 J/cm 3 at 2410 kV/cm has been achieved in PbZrO 3 /PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 bilayer film at 20°C, which is higher than that of individual PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 film (15.6 J/cm 3 ). Meanwhile, the energy storage density and efficiency of PbZrO 3 /PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 bilayer film increase slightly with the increasing temperature from 20°C to 120°C. Our results indicate that the design of antiferroelectric/ferroelectric bilayer films may be an effective way for developing high power energy storage density capacitors with high‐temperature stability.