Professor Jiagang Wu's team from the Department of Materials Science has made important progress in the research on the relationship between structure regulation and performance enhancement of lead-freerelaxor ferroelectric Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-based system.
“---, with both experimental and theoretical analyses, we successfully establish the composition–structure-property correlation in the relaxor ferroelectric BNT-based system. The large electromechanical property achieved in this work, originating from the thermodynamic behavior of deviated polarizations, shows the potential for dynamic electromechanical applications. From the phenomenological perspective, the critical ferroelectric state consists of different deviated polarizations with high-angle walls and low-angle walls, which is the result of a competitive and synergetic equilibrium between the anisotropy field and random field. We demonstrate that doping-induced local chemical/structural evolution provides the main driving force for polarization deviation. Therefore, to design materials with larger dynamic electromechanical response, balancing the local chemical/structural orders that can drive the polarization deviation is the key. This can be achieved by judicious selection of the matrix oxides, introduction of suitable dopants, and modification of synthesis conditions.” (Discussion)
The research work “has laid a foundation for understanding the “composition-structure-property” relationships in relaxor ferroelectric systems, guiding the design of functional materials for electromechanical applications.” (Abstract) The research findings were recently published in Nature Communications under the title of“Deciphering the Atomic-Scale Structural Origin for Large Dynamic Electromechanical Response in Lead-Free Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-Based Relaxor Ferroelectrics”. The first author of this paper is Dr. Jie Yi, and Jiagang Wu is the corresponding author. SCU is the first signatory of the paper. Xi'an Jiaotong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, andUniversity of Wollongongare the co first authors and co corresponding units ( Xiaoming Shi is the co first author, and professors Haijun Wu and Shujun Zhang are the co corresponding authors). Based on the research on the structure-activity relationship of lead-free bulk ferroelectric ceramics, Jiagang Wu's team has successively published many papers in international high-level journals such as JACS, Adv Mater, Nat Commun, Chem Rev, Chem Soc Rev, Prog Mater Sci, etc.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC Nos. 51972215, 52172128, 52032007) and the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFB3201100). J.W. thanks the Newton Advanced Fellowship award (NAF\R1\201126) from the Royal Society and so forth.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34062-6
