2025/10/30 by Nikolova, Diana I., Tuffin, Rachel, Guo, Mengfan +5
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.26386
The electrocaloric (EC) effect offers a promising energy-efficient and clean cooling technology. We present the first direct measurements of EC temperature change in a new family of EC fluids, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals (FNLCs), demonstrating in two such materials temperature jumps of |ΔTj| ~ 0.2 K for field changes as low as ΔE ~ 0.1 V μm-1. Indirect measurements of adiabatic temperature change |ΔT| confirm that these direct measurements are an underestimate and that ΔE = 2 V μm-1 can induce up to |ΔT| ~ 1.6 K, yielding EC strengths |ΔT/ΔE| up to 100% higher than incumbent materials. For temperature spans of 5-10 K, we predict a coefficient of performance of ~21-40. We find |ΔT| ~ 1 K for >100 FNLCs that collectively span all temperatures between 0^∘C and 100^∘C. This, together with the new device concepts conceivable with fluid EC materials, offers huge potential for cooling applications.