Outstanding unipolar strain of textured Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbZrO3–PbTiO3 piezoelectric ceramics manufactured by particle size distribution control of the plate-like BaTiO3 template

Abstract

High-strain piezoelectric ceramics are required to miniaturize actuators for use in machinery and electronic systems. This paper reports an ultra-high strain of textured Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbZrO3–PbTiO3 (PMN–PZ–PT) ceramics prepared using a plate-like BaTiO3 (BT) template. Small BT particles (<5 µm), which are difficult to orient as desired during tape casting, were removed from the as-synthesized BT (as-BT) template via a simple sedimentation method. Then, the residual BT (rs-BT) was used to prepare textured PMN–PZ–PT ceramics, which were compared with the textured ceramics prepared using the as-BT. Results show that the textured 0.4PMN–0.22PZ–0.38PT ceramics prepared with 5 vol% of rs-BT yield a significantly enhanced unipolar strain of 0.26% at 2 kV mm−1, when compared to the strain of 0.21% obtained from the textured 0.4PMN–0.22PZ–0.38PT ceramics prepared with the same amount of as-BT.