Investigation of energy storage properties in lead-free BZT-40BCT relaxor ceramic

We have synthesized lead-free “Ba(Zr0.20Ti0.80)O3-0.40(Ba0.70Ca0.30)TiO3” (BZT-40BCT) ceramic using sol–gel technique. Structural, morphology, dielectric, ferroelectric, and energy storage properties of BZT-40BCT ceramic were investigated. X-ray diffraction pattern shows the perovskite structure with no impurity peaks at room temperature. Thermal dielectric plots indicate the room temperature paraelectric behaviour. Furthermore, we applied improved Curie-Weiss fitting to discover the microscopic behaviour of the prepared composition and observed Curie constant ‘C’ as 3×105 and diffusion coefficient, γ ∼ 1.55. Ferroelectric characterization shows the ceramic composition exhibit thin “polarization vs Electric field (P-E)” profile. This demonstrates the low value of remnant polarization (Pr) and slimmer P-E profile, indicating their capability for pyroelectric-based energy harvesting. For the ceramic composition, we calculate an energy storage density of W ∼ 110 mJcm−3 and a high efficiency of η 72.1 %. Our research shows that BZT-40BCT ceramics are well suited for excellent energy storage performance electronic devices.