Design of polymorphic heterogeneous shell in relaxor antiferroelectrics for ultrahigh capacitive energy storage

Huifen Yu; Tengfei Hu; Haoyu Wang; He Qi; Jie Wu; Ruonan Zhang; Weisan Fang; Xiaoming Shi; Zhengqian Fu; Liang Chen; Jun Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-56316-9

Design of polymorphic heterogeneous shell in relaxor antiferroelectrics for ultrahigh capacitive energy storage

Nat Commun. 2025 Jan 21;16(1):886. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-56316-9.

Authors

Huifen Yu^#¹, Tengfei Hu^#², Haoyu Wang^#³, He Qi^{4

5}, Jie Wu⁶, Ruonan Zhang¹, Weisan Fang¹, Xiaoming Shi³, Zhengqian Fu², Liang Chen⁷, Jun Chen^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructures & Key Lab of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
³ School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
⁴ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China. [email protected].
⁵ Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan Province, China. [email protected].
⁶ Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan Province, China.
⁷ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China. [email protected].

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39837866
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56316-9

Abstract

Relaxor antiferroelectrics are considered promising candidate materials for achieving excellent energy storage capabilities. However, the trade-off between high recoverable energy density and high efficiency remains a major challenge in relaxor antiferroelectrics for practical applications. Herein, guided by phase-field simulation, we propose a strategy of designing polymorphic heterogeneous shell in core-shell dual-phase dielectrics to synergistically control micro and local heterostructures, resulting in comprehensive improvements in breakdown electric field, polarization fluctuation and saturation behaviors. Leveraging the core-shell effect and polarization heterogeneity, an ultrahigh recoverable energy density of 12.7 J cm^-3 and an impressive efficiency of 87.2% are achieved in lead-free relaxor antiferroelectrics, making a performance breakthrough in core-shell dielectrics. This work opens up a new avenue to efficiently develop high-performance energy storage dielectrics and is expected to be popularized in other fields.