New ferroelectric ceramics for the generation of high energy electric pulses

As ferroelectric ceramics possess a special feature of high spontaneous polarization P_s, a poled ferroelectric ceramic material can be used for the generation of high energy electric pulses by means of an induced phase transition method to convert the ferroelectric phase to an antiferroelectric one, thus releasing its stored energy. Depending on the load impedance of the external matching network, the output energy can be made to reach a value close to P_s ²/2 ε_r,ε₀. If this method is used for the generation of a high voltage or a high current pulse, the inherent insulation problem of ceramics due to the presence of a large quantity of pores and defects, the non-uniformity of the material, the low resistivity, as well as the carrier injection during the depoling process tends to limit and affect the performance of the system. We present some new experimental results to demonstrate the importance of the insulation problem and discuss the possible factors that would limit the output energy of the system