Boosting transduction coefficient in BaTiO3-Based piezoceramic through phase boundary engineering

Abstract

Transduction coefficient (d33×g33) is the core parameter for evaluating piezoelectric energy harvesting materials. However, due to the thermodynamic constraints, the synergistic variation between piezoelectric charge constant (d33) and dielectric constant (εr) indeed hinder the further increase of d33×g33. Herein, an enhanced d33×g33 of 13,000 × 10−15 m2/N was achieved in 0.80BaTiO3-0.10CaTiO3-0.10BaZrO3 (BC0.1ZT) lead-free solid solution for the first time through a phase boundary engineering strategy. The high d33×g33 mainly stems from non-synergistic variation of dielectric and piezoelectric performance in the rhombohedral-orthorhombic (R-O) phase boundary, in which the low εr comes from the increased domain size and reduced domain wall density; while the high configurational sensitivity of the unique domains to external electric field contributed to the high d33. Our findings provide an alternative approach for enhanced energy harvesting performance by tracing the strategy of designing phase boundary to decouple d33 and εr.