Enhanced temperature stability in AgNbO3 lead-free antiferroelectric ceramics through texture engineering

Lead-free dielectric materials with excellent temperature stability are critical to meet ever-increasing demands for practical energy storage applications. Herein, good temperature stability was achieved in AgNbO3 (AN) antiferroelectric ceramics through texture engineering by using NaNbO3 (NN) as template. The 3% <001>-oriented NN modified AN (AN-3NN) textured ceramic showed an optimized grain orientation degree of ~97% by using a templated grain growth technique. Interestingly, the AN-3NN textured ceramic possessed excellent temperature stability for both Wrec and energy storage efficiency (η) with respective variations below 0.7% and 0.6% over a temperature range of 20-130 ºC, significantly higher than the non-textured one with respective variations around 7% and 14%. The increased grain orientation and decreased defect concentration for texture engineering contribute to the improved thermal stability.