Relaxor-based ferroelectric single crystals grown by top-seeded solution growth method

Abstract

Compared to conventional Pb(Zr1– x Ti x )O3 (PZT) polycrystalline ceramics, relaxor-based (relaxor-PT) ferroelectric single crystals have excellent performance with ultrahigh electromechanical coupling factor and piezoelectric coefficient. For example, the typical relaxor-PT ferroelectric single crystals, such as Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PZN-PT) and Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT), have electromechanical coupling factors k 33> 0.9 and piezoelectric coefficients d 33> 2000 pC/N, making them as candidate materials for the next generation of piezoelectric devices, such as piezoelectric transducers, sensors and actuators. But the difficulties for the relaxor-PT single crystals application is the preparation technique. The crystal growth technique, including high-temperature solution (flux) growth, the vertical Bridgman growth and top-seeded solution growth (TSSG) method were used for preparation of relaxor-PT single crystals. TSSG offers some advantages for growth of relaxor-PT single crystals. Therefore, in this article, recent major advances in the development of relaxor-PT single crystals are reviewed in terms of crystal growth using top-seeded solution growth method.