Giant polarization ripple in transverse pyroelectricity

Yi Zhou; Tianpeng Ding; Jun Guo; Guoqiang Xu; Mingqiang Cheng; Chen Zhang; Xiao-Qiao Wang; Wanheng Lu; Wei Li Ong; Jiangyu Li; Jiaqing He; Cheng-Wei Qiu; Ghim Wei Ho

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-35900-x

Giant polarization ripple in transverse pyroelectricity

Nat Commun. 2023 Jan 26;14(1):426. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-35900-x.

Authors

Yi Zhou^#^{1

2}, Tianpeng Ding^#^{1

3}, Jun Guo¹, Guoqiang Xu¹, Mingqiang Cheng⁴, Chen Zhang¹, Xiao-Qiao Wang¹, Wanheng Lu¹, Wei Li Ong¹, Jiangyu Li⁴, Jiaqing He⁵, Cheng-Wei Qiu⁶, Ghim Wei Ho^{7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
² Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.
³ School of Electronic Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Film and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.
⁵ Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. hejq@sustech.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. chengwei.qiu@nus.edu.sg.
⁷ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. elehgw@nus.edu.sg.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. elehgw@nus.edu.sg.
⁹ Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore, Singapore. elehgw@nus.edu.sg.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Pyroelectricity originates from spontaneous polarization variation, promising in omnipresent non-static thermodynamic energy harvesting. Particularly, changing spontaneous polarization via out-of-plane uniform heat perturbations has been shown in solar pyroelectrics. However, these approaches present unequivocal inefficiency due to spatially coupled low temperature change and duration along the longitudinal direction. Here we demonstrate unconventional giant polarization ripples in transverse pyroelectrics, without increasing the total energy input, into electricity with an efficiency of 5-fold of conventional longitudinal counterparts. The non-uniform graded temperature variation arises from decoupled heat localization and propagation, leading to anomalous in-plane heat perturbation (29-fold) and enhanced thermal disequilibrium effects. This in turn triggers an augmented polarization ripple, fundamentally enabling unprecedented electricity generation performance. Notably, the device generates a power density of 38 mW m^-2 at 1 sun illumination, which is competitive with solar thermoelectrics and ferrophotovoltaics. Our findings provide a viable paradigm, not only for universal practical pyroelectric heat harvesting but for flexible manipulation of transverse heat transfer towards sustainable energy harvesting and management.