Professor Zhou Di's team from the School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering at Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), has proposed a Polar Glass State (PGS) strategy based on the novel concept of regulating ferroelectric energy storage through configuration entropy engineering.

This strategy aims to break local ferroelectric order and transform polar nanoregions (PNRs) into polarization units at the unit cell scale, thereby enhancing the total polarization displacement within the unit cell range.

By suppressing the ordering process driven by local free energy minimization, the material is prevented from further equilibrating and transforming into nanoscale polar regions. Under the action of a high electric field, this strategy not only maintains a large saturation polarization intensity but also effectively reduces the remanent polarization, which is of great significance for simultaneously achieving a large recoverable energy storage density (Wrec) and an electric field-insensitive energy storage efficiency (η).

Based on the PGS strategy, high-entropy ceramic powders with a configuration entropy value of 1.88R were used to prepare MLCC prototype devices with excellent sintering quality and microstructure.

At an ultra-high electric field strength of 1200 kV•cm-1, the 1.88R-MLCC exhibited excellent comprehensive energy storage performance (Wrec ≈ 22.92 J•cm-3, η ≈ 97.1%), achieving an effective balance between high energy storage density (large Wrec) and low energy loss (high η).

At an electric field strength of 800 kV•cm-1, the energy storage parameters of the 1.88R-MLCC exhibited excellent stability in the temperature range of 25-150 ℃ (Wrec ≈ 14.2 ± 0.6 J•cm-3, Δƞ/ƞ ≤ 4%). In addition, the polarization behavior of the 1.88R-MLCC has excellent cycle reliability, with the attenuation of both Wrec and η being less than 1% over the entire cycle period (1-105 times, @800 kV•cm-1).

The research results, titled Advanced stability and energy storage capacity in hierarchically engineered Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-based multilayer capacitors, were published online in the academic journal Nature Communications.