Ultrahigh breakdown strength and energy density in PLZST@PBSAZM antiferroelectric ceramics based on core-shell structure

A novel core-shell structured Pb0.91La0.06(Zr0.552Sn0.368Ti0.08)O-3@PbO-B2O3-SiO2-Al2O3-ZnO-MnO2 (PLZST@ PBSAZM) antiferroelectric particles were successfully fabricated via sol-gel method. As expected, the sintering temperature was notably reduced from 1250 degrees C to 1100 degrees C with the increasing glass contents. More importantly, the breakdown strengths of PLZST@PBSAZM ceramics were significantly increased from 252 kV/cm to 402 kV/ cm. As a result, the energy density was up to 7.4 J/cm(3) with 1 wt.% of coating glass content, a 55.3% enhancement over the pure PLZST (4.7 J/cm(3)). Furthermore, the simulations of electric field distribution provided a powerful evidence that the enhancement of the breakdown strength was induced by the core-shell structure, since the glass coating layer could not only undertake the most of electric field, but also impede the grain growth to achieve the smaller grains, which led to the reduction of electric field intensity on the grain cores.