The inevitable defect carriers in
dielectric capacitors are generally
considered to depress the polarization and breakdown strength, which
decreases energy storage performances. Distinctive from the traditional
aims of reducing defects as much as possible, this work designs (FeTi
′ –
Vo
••)• and (FeTi
″ – Vo
••) defect dipoles by oxygen
vacancy defect engineering in acceptor doped Sr2Bi4Ti(5–x)Fe
x
O18 layered perovskite films with n-type leakage
conductance. It is shown that oxygen vacancies effectively capture
electrons (carriers) in n-type dielectrics to enhance the breakdown
strength. Meanwhile, defect dipoles provide a driving field for depolarization
to engineer the generation energy of domains and the domain wall energy,
which effectively lowers the residual polarization P
r but not at the expense of the maximum polarization P
max as relaxor ferroelectric regulations. Such
defect engineering effectively breaks through the limitation, in which
the energy storage density suffers from the trade-off relationship
between polarization and breakdown strength. The Sr2Bi4Ti4.92Fe0.08O18 film with
the proper oxygen vacancy content achieves a high energy density of
110.5 J/cm3 and efficiency of 70.0% at a high breakdown
strength of 3915 kV/cm. This work explores an alternative way for
breakthroughs possible in the intrinsic trade-off relationship to
regulate dielectric energy storage by defect engineering.