Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics possess great potential for practical applications and thus improving their piezoelectric properties is crucial. Pb[Formula: see text]Sm[Formula: see text]Ba[Formula: see text]Zr[Formula: see text]Ti[Formula: see text]O3 (PSBZT) ceramics with high Curie temperature and excellent piezoelectric properties were fabricated via a conventional solid-state method, and the effect of Ba[Formula: see text] doping on the structural, dielectric, piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties was studied in detail. It is shown that doping of Ba[Formula: see text] significantly enhanced the piezoelectric properties of PSZT, the maximum [Formula: see text]533 pC/N and [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]361[Formula: see text]C at [Formula: see text] = 0.02 were acquired. Furthermore, PSZT and PSBZT ceramics were used to prepare single element ultrasonic transducers, and their performance were compared and evaluated. The results demonstrate that the PSBZT ceramic-based transducer possesses better sensitivity and bandwidth than the PSZT ceramic-based transducer.