Complete set of material constants of 0.95(Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3-0.05BaTiO3 lead-free piezoelectric single crystal and the delineation of extrinsic contributions Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 TiO 3 (BNT) is among the most promising lead-free piezoelectric candidates. However, depolarization of BNT is a longstanding obstacle for practical applications. Here, we report that piezoelectric composites of Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 TiO 3 :xZnO (BNT:xZnO, where x is the mole ratio of ZnO to BNT) have deferred thermal depolarization. With increasing x from 0 to 0.4, the observed depolarization temperature (T d ) tends to be deferred near x ¼ 0.3, as confirmed by temperature dependent dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric measurements. As the result, the piezoelectric properties of the composites can be well maintained even after the poled composites are annealed at 125 C. It is proposed that the charges stemming from ZnO can be orderly distributed to form a local field, which can keep the poling state of BNT, thus suppress the depolarization, even after the external poling filed is removed. These results may pave the way for applications of BNT-based piezoceramics and significantly improve our understanding of the depolarization mechanism by optimizing the performance of lead-free piezoelectrics. V C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

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In this paper, high-quality multiferroic (1-x)BiFeO3-xYMnO3 (x=0.05, 0.10, 0.15) thin films were successfully epitaxially grown on (001)SrTiO3 substrates with La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 buffered layers by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). X-ray diffraction shows the thin films are all single-phase perovskite with preferential orientation along the (001) direction. The (002) diffraction angles of thin films (from 0 to 0.15) shift to right, indicating the decrease of lattice parameters. All YMnO3-doped thin films exhibit strong upward self-poling via piezoelectric force microscope (PFM) measurement. Saturated ferroelectric hysteresis loops of thin films cannot be obtained even at the frequency of 50 kHz because of large leakage currents. It is noted that BFO-YMO thin films exhibit ferroelectricity considering the PFM and ferroelectric test. The magnetization measurements show that all BiFeO3-based films exhibit weak ferromagnetic behaviors with saturated magnetization at room temperature. The enhancement of magnetization was observed because of YMO doping, with the maximum saturation magnetization (M s) of 17.07 emu/cm3 in x=0.10 thin film.