BaTiO3–Bi(Li0.5Ta0.5)O3, lead-free ceramics, and multilayers with high energy storage density and efficiency

BaTiO3-based materials show great promise for energy storage capacitors, but their low breakdown strength and high remnant polarization currently result in relatively low energy density. Here, we report a novel (1–x)BaTiO3–xBi(Li0.5Ta0.5)O3 (0.06 ≤ x ≤ 0.12, BT–xBLT) lead-free ceramic with electric field (E) ∼ 280 kV cm–1, discharge energy density (We) ∼ 2.2 J cm–3, charge–discharge efficiency (η) > 89% that is thermally stable up to 160 °C and with a fast discharge time (≤0.5 μs). Multilayers of compositions with x = 0.1 also exhibited high We = 4.05 J cm–3 and η = 95.5%, demonstrating their potential for energy storage.