Giant Direct and Inverse Electrocaloric Effects in Multiferroic Thin Films

Abstract

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 external fields, which makes them promising for developing alternative solid-state cooling devices. Electrocaloric effects are particularly well-suited for portable refrigeration applications; however, most electrocaloric materials operate best at non-ambient temperatures or require the application of large electric fields. Here, we predict that modest electric fields can yield giant room-temperature electrocaloric effects in multiferroic BiCoO${}_3$ (BCO) thin films. Depending on the orientation of the applied field the resulting electrocaloric effect is either direct (heating) or inverse (cooling), which may enable the design of enhanced refrigeration cycles. We show that spin-phonon couplings and phase competition are the underlying causes of the disclosed caloric phenomena. The dual electrocaloric response of BCO thin films can be effectively tuned by means of epitaxial strain and we anticipate that other control strategies like chemical substitution are also possible.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Prediction of a Giant Magnetoelectric Cross-Caloric Effect Around a Tetracritical Point in Multiferroic SrMnO${}_3$
• Prediction of large barocaloric effects in thermoelectric superionic materials
• Giant Thermal Enhancement of the Electric Polarization in Ferrimagnetic BiFe${}_{1-x}$Co${}_x$O${}_3$ Solid Solutions Near Room Temperature
• Electrocaloric effects in multiferroics
• Negative electrocaloric effect in nonpolar phases of perovskite over wide range of temperature
• Magnetoelectrocaloric effect of multiferroic GdFeO3
• Strain engineering of oxide thin films for photocatalytic applications
• Colossal room-temperature electrocaloric strength aided by hydrostatic pressure in lead-free multiferroic solid solutions