Highly textured (Na 1/2Bi 1/2) 0.94Ba 0.06TiO 3 ceramics prepared by the screen-printing multilayer grain growth technique

Abstract

The screen-printing multilayer grain growth (MLGG) technique was successfully applied to perovskite-structured lead-free piezoelectric ceramics. Highly textured (Na 1/2Bi 1/2) 0.94Ba 0.06TiO 3 ceramics with (1 0 0) orientation were firstly fabricated by MLGG method with (or without) template particles. The MLGG approach using anisotropic Bi 4Ti 3O 12 templates resulted in >90% grain orientation, whereas the same approach without template particles resulted in high orientation degree. The grain orientation mechanism of MLGG using screen-printing was different form that of tape-casting and extrusion in templated grain growth (TGG) and reactive templated grain growth (RTGG) techniques. The interface between adjacent layers, which were formed by screen-printing, was the main mechanism for the texture development in MLGG technique. Compared with other grain orientation techniques, screen-printing was a simple, inexpensive and effective method to fabricate grain oriented lead-free piezoelectric ceramics.