Microstructure of BaTiO3–Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3–BiFeO3 Piezoelectric Ceramics

Abstract

The dependence of the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of (1-x)(0.33BaTiO3–0.67BiFeO3)–xBi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15) on Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 content x associated with microstructural changes is studied. From the behaviour of electric field-induced polarization and strain, polarization switching and depolarizing become easier as Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 content x increases. Remanent polarization and dielectric constant decrease, while polarization saturation field increases with increasing x. Microstructural observation reveals that Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 addition enhances the compositional fluctuation of BaTiO3/BiFeO3 ratio, which probably creates a nanometre-sized domain region with slightly BaTiO3-rich composition. Since this nanometre-sized domain may cause relatively large responses of polarization and strain to the applied electric field, an appropriate amount of Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 enhances the electric field-induced strain, resulting in the largest piezoelectric response at x = 0.05. However, excessive Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3 degrades polarization and strain characteristics, because a number of Ba(Fe1-xMgx/2Tix/2)12O19 grains are created as a secondary phase and cause the segregation of excess bismuth oxide phases with low dielectric constant into the boundaries of the ferroelectric/piezoelectric grains.