Amorphous Piezo‐ and Pyroelectric Phases of BaZrO₃ and SrTiO₃

Pyro- and piezoelectric quasiamorphous thin films of BaZrO3 and SrTiO3 are reported. This is the first instance of a polar amorphous solid being created from a compound that does not from polar crystalline polymorphs. The pyroelectric and the piezoelectric properties of the quasi-amorphous SrTiO3 are of the same order of magnitude (10–50 %) as those of the most commonly used crystalline pyro- and piezo-electric materials, such as BaTiO3, Pb(Ti,Zr)O3, and LiNbO3 (see figure).