UC Berkeley

Room temperature pyroelectric properties and adiabatic temperature change of (001)-textured ferroelectric multilayers on Si are computed by taking into account electrostatic interlayer interactions and thermal strains. We show that by adjusting internal electrical fields through changing relative thicknesses in a multilayer ferroelectric construct, electrothermal properties can be significantly enhanced. A quantitative analysis is provided for BaTiO 3-PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 (BTO-PZT) and SrTiO3-PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 (STO-PZT) multilayers. For instance, 0.74×BTO-0.26×PZT and 0.35×STO-0.65×PZT bilayers show ∼120% and 65% increase in electrocaloric response, respectively, compared to PZT films on Si for Δ E=500kV/cm. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.