Qiming Zhang, Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, and his research team have recently discovered a class of ferroelectric ceramics that exhibit giant electrocaloric effect (ECE) near room temperature. ECE is the electric field induced temperature change in insulation materials which have the promise of high efficiency electric coolers with compact size for on-chip cooling as well as for air-conditioning and refrigeration. However, the very small ECE observed in the past presents the effect to be attractive for practical applications. The research has been published in Advanced Functional Materials. The article titled, “Giant Electrocaloric Response Over A Broad Temperature Range in Modified BaTiO3 Ceramics,” is authored by X.-S. Qian, H.-J. Ye, Y.-T. Zhang, H. Gu, X. Li, C. A. Randall, and Q. M. Zhang. The entire Zhang paper can be viewed online.

In addition, the publication selected the related illustration as the cover as shown above, which shows a device simulation of a flat panel chip-scale cooler, employing the ECE materials developed.