The differences in phase transition characteristics of antiferroelectric PbZrO3 thin films via grain size engineering

PbZrO3 (PZO) possesses a unique antiferroelectric-ferroelectric (AFE-FE) phase transition under an external electric field and engages more attention in understanding and regulating the phase transition behavior. In this work, changing annealing temperature (600–750 °C) and ultralow content (5‰) ions doping are used to optimize the phase transition of PZO films via grain size engineering. As annealing temperature increases, the maximum polarization Pmax increases but forward/backward switching fields EF/EA reduce accompanied by the average grain size enhances from 622 to 686 nm. Following, 5‰ mol aliovalent ion La3+ or K+ doped PZO-650 films both enhance Pmax and EF/EA indicating the strengthened antiferroelectricity, and meanwhile the grain size enhances to ∼800 nm. A high discharge density of 31 J/cm3 is achieved for 5‰ mol La-doped PZO films at a low electric field of 1 MV/cm, which is ∼100 % higher than those of pure PZO films at different annealing temperatures. This work compares the phase transition characteristics changes in PZO films by changing annealing temperature and ultra-low content ion doping strategy, which would provide new thinking in grain size-engineered antiferroelectric materials for energy storage applications.