Related papers: Coexisting conventional and inverse mechanocaloric…
Mechanocaloric materials experience a change in temperature when a mechanical stress is adiabatically applied on them. Thus far, only ferroelectrics and superelastic metallic alloys have been considered as potential mechanocaloric compounds…
Solid-state cooling presents an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional refrigeration technologies that rely on thermodynamic cycles involving greenhouse gases. However, conventional caloric effects face…
The three primary ferroics, namely ferromagnets, ferroelectrics and ferroelastics exhibit corresponding large (or even giant) magnetocaloric,electrocaloric and elastocaloric effects when a phase transition is induced by the application of…
We report modifications of the ferroelectric and electrocaloric properties of BaTiO$_3$ by defects. For this purpose, we have combined \textit{ab initio}-based molecular dynamics simulations with a simple model for defects. We find that…
Solid-state cooling based on i-caloric effects is considered the most promising alternative to replace the conventional vapor-compression refrigeration systems. It is possible to define an i-caloric effect as a thermal response registered…
Solid-state cooling is an environmentally friendly and highly scalable technology that may solve most of the problems associated with current refrigerant methods. Solid-state cooling consists of applying external fields on caloric…
We study the electrocaloric (EC) effect in bulk BaTiO$_3$ (BTO) using molecular dynamics simulations of a first principles-based effective Hamiltonian, combined with direct measurements of the adiabatic EC temperature change in BTO single…
We have developed first-principles models, based on a general parametrization of the full potential-energy surface, to investigate the lattice-dynamical properties of perovskite oxides. We discuss the application of our method to prototypic…
The electrocaloric effect (ECE) offers a promising alternative to the traditional gas compressing refrigeration due to its high efficiency and environmental friendliness. The unusual negative electrocaloric effect refers to the adiabatic…
Molecular dynamics simulations predict a giant electrocaloric effect at the ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase boundary in PZT (PbTiO$_3$-PbZrO$_3$). These large-scale simulations also give insights into the atomistic mechanisms of the…
Combining multiple degrees of freedom in strongly-correlated materials such as transition-metal oxides would lead to fascinating magnetic and magnetocaloric features. Herein, the strain effects are used to markedly tailor the magnetic and…
The magnetocaloric effect in exchange-coupled synthetic-antiferromagnet multilayers is investigated experimentally and theoretically. We observe a temperature-controlled inversion of the effect, where the entropy increases on switching the…
Ferroelectrics are attractive candidate materials for environmentally friendly solid state refrigeration free of greenhouse gases. Their thermal response upon variations of external electric fields is largest in the vicinity of their phase…
Molecular ferroelectrics have captured immense attention due to their superiority over inorganic oxide ferroelectrics, such as environmentally friendly, low-cost, flexible, foldable. However, the mechanisms of ferroelectric switching and…
Single-crystalline ferroelectric (FE) perovskites show a large electrocaloric effect at electric field-induced phase transitions, promising for solid-state cooling technologies. However, paraelectric-FE transition temperatures are often too…
We show that the electrocaloric (EC) effect -- e.g., the temperature change experienced by an insulator upon application of an electric bias -- lends itself to a straightforward interpretation when expressed as a Taylor series in the…
A centrosymmetric stress cannot induce a polar response in centric materials, piezoelectricity is, for example, possible only in non-centrosymmetric structures. An exception is meta-materials with shape asymmetry, which may be polarized by…
An atomistic effective Hamiltonian technique is used to investigate the finite-temperature energy storage properties of a ferroelectric nanocomposite consisting of an array of BaTiO$_{3}$ nanowires embedded in a SrTiO$_{3}$ matrix, for…
A method for the calculation of the temperature dependence of dielectric and piezoelectric responses, based on the use of a first-principles effective Hamiltonian, is described. Results are presented for the ferroelectric perovskite PbTiO3.…
Refrigeration systems based on compression of greenhouse gases are environmentally threatening and cannot be scaled down to on-chip dimensions. In the vicinity of a phase transition caloric materials present large thermal responses to…