This chapter discusses properties of lead-based piezoelectric materials, the most versatile and the most widely used piezoelectrics. Majority of these materials were discovered in 1950s and 1960s, and their properties and applications are described in classical textbooks, e.g. (Jaffe et al. 1971;Lines and Glass 1979). After giving essential background, this chapter will focus on recent developments. Lead titanate is discussed first, followed by modified lead titanate compositions. Lead zirconate titanate is then discussed in some details, focusing on mechanisms of hardening and softening and properties at morphotropic phase boundary. The subsequent sections discuss field-induced piezoelectric effect in relaxors, relaxor-ferroelectric ceramics, and crystals. Other lead-based materials and environmental issues are briefly discussed in the closing sections of the chapter.
Lead Titanate (PbTiO 3 )Pure lead titanate, PbTiO 3 , is not commercially used as a piezoelectric material, but can be either modified or form solid solutions to obtain materials with excellent piezoelectric properties. Most of piezoelectrics presently exploited commercially are solid solutions based on lead titanate. In this section, the structure and basic properties of PbTiO 3 are presented.PbTiO 3 belongs to the perovskite family, ABO 3 . At room temperature, PbTiO 3 is ferroelectric with tetragonal C 1 4v − P4mm space group. Lead titanate undergoes a first-order phase transition at 493 • C into cubic O 1 4 − Pm3m paraelectric form. This phase transition was considered in the past to be a prototypic displacive phase transition (Lines and Glass 1979) but recent results have suggested that it exhibits mixed displacive and order-disorder character (Nelmes et al. 1990).