Journal
NATURE MATERIALS
Volume 17, Issue 5, Pages 432-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-018-0059-8
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Funding
- Army Research Office [W911NF-14-1-0104]
- UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowship
- US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC-0012375]
- National Science Foundation [OISE-1545907, DMR-1708615]
- US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division [DE-AC02-05-CH11231]
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The need for efficient energy utilization is driving research into ways to harvest ubiquitous waste heat. Here, we explore pyroelectric energy conversion from low-grade thermal sources that exploits strong field-and temperature-induced polarization susceptibilities in the relaxor ferroelectric 0.68Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.32PbTiO(3). Electric-field-driven enhancement of the pyroelectric response (as large as -550 mu C m(-2) K-1) and suppression of the dielectric response (by 72%) yield substantial figures of merit for pyroelectric energy conversion. Field-and temperature-dependent pyroelectric measurements highlight the role of polarization rotation and field-induced polarization in mediating these effects. Solid-state, thin-film devices that convert low-grade heat into electrical energy are demonstrated using pyroelectric Ericsson cycles, and optimized to yield maximum energy density, power density and efficiency of 1.06 J cm(-3), 526 W cm(-3) and 19% of Carnot, respectively; the highest values reported to date and equivalent to the performance of a thermoelectric with an effective ZT approximate to 1.16 for a temperature change of 10 K. Our findings suggest that pyroelectric devices may be competitive with thermoelectric devices for low-grade thermal harvesting.
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