Large conventional and inverse electrocaloric effects in PbMg0.5W0.5O3 multilayer capacitors above and below the Néel temperature

Bulk PbMg0.5W0.5O3 (PMW) is an antiferroelectric in which an electric field of 12 V μm−1 is sufficient to initiate a nominally reversible transition to a dipole-aligned (ferroelectric) phase if operating just below the Néel temperature T N, near room temperature (Li et al 2021 Adv. Funct. Mater. 31 2101176). Here we describe multilayer capacitors (MLCs) of PMW that permit 27 V µm−1 to be applied without breakdown. Below T N, nominally reversible driving of the partial (full) antiferroelectric–ferroelectric (AF–FE) transition over a wide (narrow) range of temperatures yields large inverse electrocaloric (EC) effects that peak at ΔTj ∼ –2.6 K when applying 25 V μm−1 at 293 K (ΔTj denotes directly measured temperature jumps). Above T N, nominally reversible driving of the partial (full) paraelectric–ferroelectric (PE–FE) transition yields large conventional EC effects that peak at ΔTj ∼ +5.2 K when applying 25 V μm−1 at 302 K. This good EC performance near room temperature implies that MLCs of PMW could be exploited in prototype EC coolers.