Tailoring the negative electrocaloric effect of PbZrO3 antiferroelectric thin films by Yb doping

Abstract A novel electrocaloric material system, Yb doped PbZrO3 (PYZ) antiferroelectric (AFE) thin films with the content of Yb from 0 to 3.0 mol% were fabricated by the sol-gel method. The influence of the Yb contents on the orientation degree and the negative electrocaloric effect (NECE) of PYZ AFE thin films were investigated. We found a giant NECE (ΔT = -12.01 K) and an entropy variation of −11.8 J kg−1 K−1 for the 1.0 mol% Yb doped PbZrO3 thin films at 70 °C with the applied electric of 800 kV cm−1 calculated on account of the Maxwell equation. These results suggested the large NECE can be acquired via Yb doping and raised hopes for the development mid- to large-scale solid-state cooling devices with high efficiency in combination with positive ECE.