Orientation dependence of electrocaloric effects in Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)-PbTiO3 single crystals

Electrocaloric effects of (001), (011) and (111) oriented single crystals have been thoroughly investigated to study the ferroelectric-ferroelectric (FE-FE) phase transition induced isothermal entropy changes in 0.94Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.06PbTiO(3) (PZN-PT) material. The results showed that the PZN-PT crystals oriented in (111) direction exhibit similar to 38% higher electrocaloric cooling values near lower critical phase transitions from rhombohedral (R) to tetragonal (T) phases in PZN-PT crystals, compared to those oriented in (011) direction. Though (111) samples display higher cooling values, (011) samples showed broader cooling curves due to their easily switchable characteristics between R and T phases. (C) 2013 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.