Electrocaloric Behaviour of Tape Cast and Grain Oriented Nbt-Kbt Ceramics

Abstract

We have investigated the effects of grain orientation and tape casting process on the electrocaloric properties of 0.82Na(0.5)Bi(0.5)TiO(3)-0.18 K0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (0.82NBT-0.18KBT) ceramics at the Morphotropic Phase Boundary (MPB), using direct and indirect measurements. We observe a larger electrocaloric response for the template-free ceramics compared to 7 and 10 wt% template containing ones, suggesting that grain orientation along rhombohedral < 100 > does not improve the electrocaloric response. Indirect measurements yielded a large adiabatic temperature change of around 3 K under an electric field of 50 kV/cm, which is significantly higher than 0.9 K reached at a lower electric field of 40 kV/cm using the direct measurement.