Room-Temperature Electrocaloric Effect in Layered Ferroelectric CuInP₂S₆ for Solid-State Refrigeration

Abstract

A material with reversible temperature change capability under an external electric field, known as the electrocaloric effect (ECE), has long been considered as a promising solid-state cooling solution. However, electrocaloric (EC) performance of EC materials generally is not sufficiently high for real cooling applications. As a result, exploring EC materials with high performance is of great interest and importance. Here, we report on the ECE of ferroelectric materials with van der Waals layered structure (CuInP2S6 or CIPS in this work in particular). Over 60% polarization charge change is observed within a temperature change of only 10 K at Curie temperature. Large adiabatic temperature change (|ΔT|) of 3.3 K and isothermal entropy change (|ΔS|) of 5.8 J kg–1 K–1 at |ΔE| = 142.0 kV cm–1 and at 315 K (above and near room temperature) are achieved, with a large EC strength (|ΔT|/|ΔE|) of 29.5 mK cm kV–1. The ECE of CIPS is also investigated theoretically by numerical simulation, and a further EC performance projection is provided.