Y3+ doped 0.64PMN-0.36PT ceramic for energy scavenging applications: Excellent piezo-/ferro-response with the investigations of true-remanent polarization and resistive leakage

Abstract

In this work, the detailed ferroelectric properties of pure and yttrium doped 0.64 Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.36PbTiO3 (Y-doped PMN-PT) ceramics including determination of true remanent polarization and study of resistive leakage were investigated. In dielectric study, the transition temperature (Tm) for the pure and Y-doped ceramic was found to be 205 °C and 165 °C, respectively. Displacement vs. Voltage (D-V) butterfly loops were traced from which a high value of the piezoelectric coefficient for Y-doped PMN-PT (d33 = 604 pm/V) was revealed which was fairly greater than the observed value for pure PMN-PT (d33 = 547 pm/V). The Y-doped PMN-PT ceramic displayed excellent saturated ferroelectric hysteresis loops with higher values of coercive field (Ec), spontaneous (Ps) and remanent (Pr) polarizations, and pyroelectric coefficient (p) compared to the pure PMN-PT ceramic. Also, the Y-doped PMN-PT ceramic displayed good fatigue resistant characteristic indicating its high ferroelectric quality. The relative values of true remanent polarization i.e. Ptr/Pr (in %) were found to be ∼82.86% and 89.60% for pure and Y-doped PMN-PT, respectively using the “Remanent Hysteresis” Task. Also, the resistive-leakage characteristic of both pure and doped ceramics was analyzed using Time-dependent compensated (TDC) hysteresis task. Finally, both pure and Y-doped PMN-PT ceramics have been used for building piezoelectric energy harvesting devices (PEHDs). The Y-doped PMN-PT ceramic based PEHD showed enhanced performance by generating an output voltage around 60 V under periodic mechanical tapping (∼2.0 kgf @ 5 hz) and thus finds application in powering various self-powered devices.