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Fine powders comprising nanocrystallites of Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3 (BCZT) were synthesized via oxalate precursor method, which facilitated to obtain homogenous and large grain sized ceramics at a lower sintering temperature. The compacted powders were sintered at various temperatures in the range of 1200 °C–1500 °C for an optimized duration of 10 h. Interestingly the one that was sintered at 1450 °C/10 h exhibited well resolved Morphotrophic Phase Boundary. The average grain size associated with this sample was 30 μm accompanied by higher domain density mostly with 90° twinning. These were believed to have significant contribution towards obtaining large strain of about 0.2% and piezoelectric coefficient as high as 563 pC/N. The maximum force that was generated by BCZT ceramic (having 30 μm grain size) was found to be 161 MPa, which is much higher than that of known actuator materials such as PZT (40 MPa) and NKN-5-LT (7 MPa).

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Ferroelectric domain pattern and piezoresponse (d33) versus DC bias voltage for the BCZT nanocrystalline powder.