Topic: Microstructural Engineering of Advanced Dielectric Ceramics for Energy Storage Applications

Advanced dielectric ceramics have emerged as critical materials for next-generation energy storage technologies due to their high power density, excellent thermal stability, and fast charge–discharge capability. However, achieving high energy density and high efficiency simultaneously remains challenging due to the intrinsic relationship between dielectric performance and material microstructures. Engineering microstructural features, including grain size distribution, grain boundary characteristics, defect configurations, domain structures, phase composition, and interfacial architectures, provides an effective pathway for optimizing dielectric properties and energy storage performance.

Recent advances in high-energy-density dielectric ceramics, relaxor ferroelectric ceramics, antiferroelectric materials, and lead-free ceramic systems have demonstrated that carefully designed microstructures can effectively regulate polarization behavior, suppress dielectric loss, enhance breakdown strength, and improve charge–discharge performance. Strategies such as grain refinement, defect engineering, domain structure manipulation, interface optimization, and heterostructure construction have become key approaches for establishing precise microstructure–property relationships.

Meanwhile, emerging fabrication technologies, including advanced sintering methods, thin-film deposition, additive manufacturing, and compositional modification, enable the creation of tailored ceramic microstructures across multiple length scales, from atomic-scale defects to nanoscale domains and microscale architectures. These advances provide new opportunities for developing high-performance dielectric materials and integrated energy storage devices.

This Special Issue, entitled “Microstructural Engineering of Advanced Dielectric Ceramics for Energy Storage Applications”, aims to highlight recent progress in the design, fabrication, characterization, and application of dielectric ceramic materials through the perspective of microstructural engineering. Topics include grain and grain boundary engineering, defect and interface regulation, phase and domain structure design, hierarchical microstructure construction, advanced processing technologies, and microstructure-driven ceramic energy storage devices.

Dielectric ceramics, energy storage materials, microstructural engineering, ferroelectric and relaxor ceramic, antiferroelectric materials