Effects of CuO additive on properties of high-performance (Ba0.85Ca0.15)(Ti0.9Zr0.1)O3 piezoceramics obtained by vat photopolymerization

Abstract

Lead-free (Ba0.85Ca0.15)(Ti0.9Zr0.1)O3 (BCZT) piezoelectric ceramics are ideal materials for the preparation of piezoelectric ceramic devices. However, pure BCZT ceramics have the problems of high sintering temperature and unsatisfactory Curie temperature. Besides, piezoelectric ceramic devices with complex structures are difficult to fabricate with conventional processing methods. In this paper, we prepared BCZT ceramics with CuO additions of 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mol% based on vat photopolymerization, and investigated effects of CuO additive on their various properties. The appropriate addition of CuO greatly improved the piezoelectric properties and lowered the sintering temperature by 100 °C. With increasing CuO content, it was found that the phase composition shifted from an orthogonal phase to the coexistence of orthogonal and tetragonal phases. BCZT-1.5 mol%CuO sintered at 1400 °C exhibited the best performance: d33 = 525 pC/N，g33 = 13.7 × 10−3 Vm/N，εr = 4323，tan δ = 0.012，Pr = 14.66 μC/cm2，Ec = 2.42 kV/cm. In addition, when the energy harvesting performance of BCZT-1.5 mol%CuO with complex structures prepared by vat photopolymerization was tested, the short circuit current (Isc) and open circuit voltage (Voc) of BCZT-1.5 mol% CuO ceramics were ∼13.0 pA and ∼11.0 mV, respectively, which exhibited better energy harvesting capability than the pure BCZT ceramics. These results suggest that the performance of BCZT ceramics can be significantly enhanced with CuO additive and verify the feasibility of vat photopolymerization forming high-performance piezoelectric ceramics with complex structures.