Exceptional capacitive energy storage in CaTiO3-based ceramics featuring laminate nanodomains

A widely adopted strategy for enhancing the capacitive energy storage performance of dielectrics involves the reduction of microdomains into nanodomains or even polar clusters. Apart from domain size, the configuration of domains significantly impacts the capacitive energy storage properties. In this study, we incorporated 0.9Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-0.1SrAl0.5Nb0.5O3 into a CaTiO3 matrix to from a solid solution with laminate nanodomains that features numerous small interdigital structures and additional twin boundaries. Beyond the conventional heterogeneous polarization, which includes weakly polar tetragonal P4bm and strongly polar orthorhombic P21ma symmetries, these nanodomains also exhibit locally homogeneous P21ma symmetries, distinguished by large polarization vectors primarily spanning 15 to 45 pm in magnitude and 95 degrees-165 degrees in orientation. As a result, the optimized composition achieves a remarkable recoverable energy storage of 8.71 J cm-3 and an outstanding efficiency of 93.5 % at 700 kV cm- 1. Furthermore, the material demonstrates superior frequency stability, robust fatigue resistance, and exceptional temperature stability. These findings provide a domain engineering strategy to develop high-performance capacitive dielectric materials.