A New Approach to Thin Films Paves the Way for Non-Toxic Energy Storage

For decades, many of the most effective energy storage materials have relied on toxic elements such as lead. While these materials offer excellent dielectric properties for capacitors and related devices, their environmental and health costs are significant. Now, a breakthrough study suggests we may soon achieve comparable — or even superior — performance with non-toxic thin films.

Non-toxic Thin Film Energy Storage

Phase boundaries in sodium niobate thin films open pathways to safer, high-performance energy storage. Credit: Nature Communications (2025).

Researchers from North Carolina State University, working with collaborators at Cornell, Stanford, Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Drexel University, and others, have demonstrated a method for precisely controlling phase boundaries in thin films by adjusting film thickness. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, point to the development of new, non-toxic capacitor technologies for energy storage and communication systems.

Why Phase Boundaries Matter

Many materials can adopt multiple crystalline structures. Phase boundaries are the regions where these structures coexist, and they can dramatically influence a material’s properties. For example, controlling phase boundaries can enhance a material’s ability to store charge. Traditionally, researchers have relied on chemical modifications to tune these boundaries, but this approach often involves toxic elements such as lead.

The new method avoids chemical modification. Instead, by changing the physical strain in a material through precise control of thin-film thickness, scientists can directly manipulate phase boundary distributions in non-toxic compounds.

Sodium Niobate as a Test Case

The team focused on sodium niobate (NaNbO3), a simple member of the potassium sodium niobate (KNN) family. Sodium niobate is promising because it is lead-free, but until now, it has been difficult to engineer due to sodium’s volatility in traditional chemical approaches.

Using pulsed laser deposition, the researchers grew epitaxial NaNbO3 films with controlled thicknesses. They discovered a linear relationship between thickness and the ratio of two crystalline phases, known as MB and MC. The thinner the film, the more the MC phase dominated. By tuning this balance, the team engineered dielectric properties that rival or exceed those of lead-based thin films.

Promising Dielectric Properties

The NaNbO3 thin films demonstrated:

  • High dielectric permittivity — the ability to store large amounts of charge.
  • Excellent tunability — the stored charge could be adjusted by applying an electric field, crucial for communication technologies.
  • Comparable or superior performance to toxic lead-based films.

These results show that sodium niobate and related lead-free systems could form the basis of safe, sustainable next-generation energy storage devices.

A Collaborative Effort

The study was a large-scale collaboration, bringing together experimental synthesis, electron ptychography, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, second harmonic generation polarimetry, and advanced computational simulations. This multidisciplinary approach helped fully characterize the physical, chemical, and electronic properties of the thin films.

Toward a Safer Energy Future

The researchers emphasize that the strain-driven technique is not limited to NaNbO3. It can be applied to other lead-free ferroelectric systems, including the wider KNN family. This opens opportunities for engineering new materials that combine sustainability with high performance, suitable for capacitors, sensors, and communication devices.

Conclusion

By showing how to harness phase boundaries through thin-film strain, this work represents a paradigm shift in energy storage materials design. It suggests that the future of capacitors and dielectric devices may no longer depend on toxic materials, but instead on carefully engineered, sustainable thin films.

📖 Original source: TechXplore article and Nature Communications study.

Footnote: This blog article was prepared with the assistance of AI technologies.

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Hashtags: #EnergyStorage #ThinFilms #NonToxicMaterials #LeadFree #Ferroelectrics #MaterialsScience #Nanotechnology #QuantumServerNetworks #PWmat

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