Piezoelectric actuators transform electrical energy into mechanical energy, and because of their compactness, quick response time and accurate displacement, they are sought after in many applications. Polycrystalline piezoelectric ceramics are technologically more appealing than single crystals due to their simpler and less expensive processing, but have yet to display electrostrain values that exceed 1%. Here we report a material design strategy wherein the efficient switching of ferroelectric-ferroelastic domains by an electric field is exploited to achieve a high electrostrain value of 1.3% in a pseudo-ternary ferroelectric alloy system, BiFeO-PbTiO-LaFeO. Detailed structural investigations reveal that this electrostrain is associated with a combination of several factors: a large spontaneous lattice strain of the piezoelectric phase, domain miniaturization, a low-symmetry ferroelectric phase and a very large reverse switching of the non-180° domains. This insight for the design of a new class of polycrystalline piezoceramics with high electrostrains may be useful to develop alternatives to costly single-crystal actuators.

We report the morphology-controlled synthesis of aluminium (Al) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanosheets on Al alloy (AA-6061) substrate by a low-temperature-solution growth method without using any external seed layer and doping process.

Nitridation of sapphire substrates is used as a precursor to the growth of GaN films to provide a wetting layer which is closer in terms of structure and chemistry to the overlayer. Nitridation has been carried out by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition at 530, 800, and 1100 °C in an environment of NH3 and H2. The structure and chemistry of the nitrided layer grown at these different temperatures have been studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electron diffraction, high resolution electron microscopy, and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The low temperature nitridation process results in a nitrided layer in which oxygen has been partially replaced by nitrogen to form a cubic spinel-Al x O y N z structure. Nitridation at 800° and 1100 °C results in complete substitution of oxygen atoms by nitrogen to form a cubic rock salt AlN structure. These structures are stable on thermal annealing at 1000 °C prior to epitaxial GaN growth.

Phase transformation and stability of cubic aluminium nitride (AlN) phases such as zinc-blende and rock-salt have been investigated using first-principles calculations based on density functional perturbation theory (DFPT) within quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA). The phonon dispersion relations of both the cubic phases have been calculated at various high-symmetry points of the Brillouin Zone. The pressure and volume dependence of phonon frequencies have been investigated. The application of pressure results in opposite trend of transverse acoustic (TA) phonon frequencies for rock-salt and zinc-blende AlN phases. The TA frequencies found to increase for the former one and decrease for the latter one with the increase in pressure. The dynamical instability results in a volume expansion of rock-salt AlN close to the equilibrium volume of zinc-blende AlN. Phase transformation of these cubic phases is further investigated by computing an equilibrium pressure-temperature phase diagram within QHA. The cubic rock-salt AlN is found to form at high pressures and temperatures than zinc-blende AlN. The temperature dependence of lattice constant and the corresponding volume thermal expansion coefficient of both the cubic phases have been investigated.

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