Both low strain hysteresis and high piezoelectric performance are required for practical applications in precisely controlled piezoelectric devices and systems. Unfortunately, enhanced piezoelectric properties were usually obtained with the presence of a large strain hysteresis in BaTiO (BT)-based piezoceramics. In this work, we propose to integrate crystallographic texturing and domain engineering strategies into BT-based ceramics to resolve this challenge. [001] grain-oriented (BaCa)(TiZr)O (BCTZ) ceramics with a texture degree as high as 98.6% were synthesized by templated grain growth. A very high piezoelectric coefficient (d) of 755 pC/N, and an extremely large piezoelectric strain coefficient (d* = 2027 pm/V) along with an ultralow strain hysteresis (H) of 4.1% were simultaneously achieved in BT-based systems for the first time, which are among the best values ever reported on both lead-free and lead-based piezoceramics. The exceptionally high piezoelectric response is mainly from the reversible contribution, and can be ascribed to the piezoelectric anisotropy, the favorable domain configuration, and the formation of smaller sized domains in the BCTZ textured ceramics. This study paves a new pathway to develop lead-free piezoelectrics with both low strain hysteresis and high piezoelectric coefficient. More importantly, it represents a very exciting discovery with potential application of BT-based ceramics in high-precision piezoelectric actuators.

Articles you may be interested inEnhanced temperature stability in 〈111〉 textured tetragonal Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 piezoelectric ceramics

High-performance piezoelectrics are pivotal to various electronic applications including multilayer actuators, sensors, and energy harvesters. Despite the presence of high Lotgering factor F 001 , two key limitations to today's relaxor-PbTiO 3 textured ceramics are low piezoelectric properties relative to single crystals and high texture temperature. In this work, Pb(Yb 1/2 Nb 1/2 )O 3 -Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -PbTiO 3 (PYN-PMN-PT) textured ceramics with F 001 ∼ 99% were synthesized at only 975 °C through liquid-phase-assisted templated grain growth, where of particular significance is that single-crystal properties, i.e., very large electrostrain S max /E max ∼ 1830 pm V −1 , giant piezoelectric figure of merit d 33 × g 33 ∼ 61.3 × 10 −12 m 2 N −1 , high electromechanical coupling k 33 ∼ 0.90, and Curie temperature T c ∼ 205 °C, were simultaneously achieved. Especially, the S max /E max and d 33 × g 33 values correspond to ∼180% enhancement as compared to the regularly 1200 °C-textured ceramics with F 001 ∼ 96%, representing the highest values ever reported on piezoceramics. Phase-field simulation revealed that grain misorientation has a stronger influence on piezoelectricity than texture fraction. The ultrahigh piezoelectric response achieved here is mainly attributed to effective control of grain orientation features and domain miniaturization. This work provides important guidelines for developing novel ceramics with significantly enhanced functional properties and low synthesis temperature in the future and can also greatly expand application fields of piezoceramics to high-performance, miniaturized electronic devices with multilayer structures.