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Zhang. Microstructures 2023;3:2023003 Microstructures
DOI: 10.20517/microstructures.2022.38

Commentary Open Access

High entropy design: a new pathway to promote the

piezoelectricity and dielectric energy storage in
perovskite oxides

Shujun Zhang

Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong,
Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.
Correspondence to: Prof. Shujun Zhang, Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for
Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia. E-mail: shujun@uow.edu.au
How to cite this article: Zhang S. High entropy design: a new pathway to promote the piezoelectricity and dielectric energy
storage in perovskite oxides. Microstructures 2023;3:2023003. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/microstructures.2022.38

Received: 2 Nov 2022 Accepted: 7 Nov 2022 Published: 6 Jan 2023
Academic Editor: Xiaozhou Liao Copy Editor: Fangling Lan Production Editor: Fangling Lan

Commentary to publications by Prof. Jun Chen, University of Science and Technology Beijing, E-mail:
junchen@ustb.edu.cn (10.1038/s41467-022-30821-7; 10.1016/j.actamat.2022.118115).

Intrinsic polarization is an important property that distinguishes ferroelectric materials from others. Tuning
the polarization configuration is crucial for promoting the electric performance, including the piezoelectric
and dielectric properties. For example, the traditional strategy of constructing phase boundaries, including
morphotropic phase boundaries (MPBs) and polymorphic phase boundaries (PPBs), is usually adopted to
tune the polarization configuration with coexisting multiple ferroelectric phases to cause a more flexible
polarization configuration than that of a single phase, resulting in higher ferroelectricity or
piezoelectricity . To enhance the energy storage performance of ferroelectrics, macrodomains with an
[1-5]
ordered configuration due to long-range polarization are generally broken by tuning the polarization
configuration to nanodomains or polar nanoregions (PNRs) . These approaches, however, have limited
[6-8]
degrees of freedom in further tuning the polarization configuration and improving electrical performance.
“High entropy” is a new materials design strategy developed in the 1980s-1990s, but only recently realized in
[9]
high-entropy alloys in 2004 by Yeh et al. , and was gradually extended into the fields of metal carbides and
oxides [10,11] . Its excellent high-entropy effect increases the disorder of a system by forming solid solutions of
multi-component elements, effectively controlling various properties benefiting from the entropy-

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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