WANG Qiangqiang, SUN Ruijin^*, WU Yuetong, GUO Jiesen, CHEN Fei,  MA Yuxin, MENG Dezhong, ZHAO Changchun^*

(School of Science, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China)

Abstract: A large number of researches on the pyroelectricity of boracite, which is a rare polar mineral family, have shown that boracite has pyroelectric properties close to those of the PZT and other materials under the situation of without any modification of its properties. Its structure is not the traditional perovskite configuration and it does not contain any toxic elements. It is of great research and application value as a pyroelectric material. Unfortunately, due to the limitation of material quality and other reasons, the pyroelectric mechanism and the common constitutive relationship of boracite have not been elucidated so far. Therefore, the study on the systematic modification of boracite has not been deeply carried out, and its potential of pyroelectric applications has not been well exploited. Based on the above scientific issues, in this paper, we have reviewed the synthetic methods of the boracite mineral crystalline material and progresses of researches on its dielectric, pyroelectric, ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, ferroelastic, and nonlinear optical properties, in order to provide important references for the further synthesis of single boracite crystal, the study of its intrinsic physical properties, and the modulation of its properties.

Keywords: boracite; borate mineral; artificial synthesis; performance research