Enhanced Energy-Storage Density and High Efficiency of Lead-Free CaTiO3-BiScO3 Linear Dielectric Ceramics.

A novel lead-free (1 - x)CaTiO3-xBiScO3 linear dielectric ceramic with enhanced energy-storage density was fabricated. With the composition of BiScO3 increasing, the dielectric constant of (1 - x)CaTiO3-xBiScO3 ceramics first increased and then decreased after the composition x > 0.1, while the dielectric loss decreased first and increased. For the composition x = 0.1, the polarization was increased into 12.36 μC/cm2, 4.6 times higher than that of the pure CaTiO3. The energy density of 0.9CaTiO3-0.1BiScO3 ceramic was 1.55 J/cm3 with the energy-storage efficiency of 90.4% at the breakdown strength of 270 kV/cm, and the power density was 1.79 MW/cm3. Comparison with other lead-free dielectric ceramics confirmed the superior potential of CaTiO3-BiScO3 ceramics for the design of ceramics capacitors for energy-storage applications. First-principles calculations revealed that Sc subsitution of Ti-site induced the atomic displacement of Ti ions in the whole crystal lattice, and lattice expansion was caused by variation of the bond angles and lenghths. Strong hybridization between O 2p and Ti 3d was observed in both valence band and conduction band; the hybridization between O 2p and Sc 3d at high conduction band was found to enlarge the band gap, and the static dielectric tensors were increased, which was the essential for the enhancement of polarization and dielectric properties.