The woven replication process was used to fabricate lead zirconate titanate (PZT)/polymer composites with 1-3, 2-3, and 3-3 connectivities by starting with novoloid-derived carbon fiber, woven fabric, and nonwoven felt templates, respectively. Activated carbon-fiber template material was impregnated with PZT by soaking it in a solution containing stoichiometric amounts of dissolved lead, zirconium, titanium, and niobium ions. Heat treatment burned out the carbon, leaving a PZT replica with the same form as the template material. Replicas were sintered in a controlled atmosphere and backfilled with an epoxy polymer to form final composites. This method, which is believed to be adaptable for mass production, is capable of producing composites withextremely fine microstructures. Woven composite samples have fiber tow diameters of 200 to 250 pm and spacings between tows of about 150 to 250 pm. Average d33 = 90 pC/N, g33 = 211 mV * m/N, and dhgh hydrophone figure of merit of 2100 X lo-'' m2/N values are reported for woven PZT/polymer composites. [

In the conventional poling method, piezoelectric ceramics and composites are poled by applying a large dc voltage. Poling of composites having a polymer matrix with 0-3 connectivity is especially difficult because the electric field within the high-dielectricconstant grains is far smaller than in the low-dielectric-constant polymer matrix. Therefore, very large electric fields are required to pole these types of composites. However, large electric fields often cause dielectric breakdown of the samples. In this study for improved poling, the corona discharge technique was used to pole piezoelectric ceramics, fired PZTcomposites, and O.SPbTi0, OSBiFeO, 0-3 polymer composites. A n experimental setup for corona poling is described. The dielectric and piezoelectric properties of materials poled by the corona discharge technique were comparable to those obtained with the conventional poling method. [

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