Large low-field-driven electrocaloric effect in organic-inorganic hybrid TMCM-CdCl3
Due to environmental-friendliness and high-efficiency, electrocaloric effect (ECE) is widely regarded as a refrigeration technology for tomorrow. Herein, utilizing organic-inorganic hybridization strategy, we achieve the largest low-field-driven ECE and highest directly-measured electrocaloric strength (ECS) via packing sphere-like organic cation (CH<sub>3</sub>)<sub>3</sub>NCH<sub>2</sub>Cl<sup>+</sup> (TMCM<sup>+</sup>) into inorganic one-dimension (1-D) CdCl<sub>3</sub> chain framework. Single-crystal X-ray (SC-XRD) diffraction combined with Raman Spectra reveals that the simultaneous order-disorder transition of organic cations and dramatic structure change of inorganic framework are responsible for the large ECE. Moreover, the measured P-E loops and density function theory (DFT) calculations convey that the distinctive electric-field-induced metastable phase and consequential two-step meta-electric transition could lower the transition energy barrier and account for the low driving field. This work shows that the low-symmetry interaction between inorganic framework and organic cations plays a key role in achieving large ECE under low-field, which provides a method for designing high-performance electrocaloric materials via organic-inorganic hybridization.
Authors
- Xingyue Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4307-2667)
- Zhijie Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6007-4085)
- Jirong Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4531-4794)
- Yurong Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6529-3583)
- Fengxia Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0383-0213)
- Zheng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5350-2747)
- Yue Kan
- Jie Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4859-0671)
- Yang Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6917-256X)
- V. Franco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3028-6815)
- Jia Yan Law (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1431-6773)
- Munan Hao
- Yuan Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3882-174X)
- Yunzhong Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8368-5823)
- Yihong Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8937-6132)
- Yanglong Hou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0579-4594)
- Xinyue Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1549-0666)
- Shifeng Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3522-1060)
- Jing Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5458-6711)
- Bingjie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5056-7476)
- Congcong Chai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8758-6902)
- Baogen Shen
- Tongyun Zhao
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (CN)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures (CN)
- Academy of Opto-Electronics (CN)
- Jiangxi Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Physics (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology (CN)
- Universidad de Sevilla (ES)
- University of Science and Technology Beijing (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-04-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58914-z
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.59
Funders
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Junta de Andalucía
- Agencia Estatal de Investigación
- National Key Research and Development Program of China