Enhanced piezoelectric properties and depolarization temperature in textured (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3-based ceramics via homoepitaxial templated grain growth

Enhanced piezoelectric response was usually achieved in (Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 )TiO 3 (BNT)-based ceramics with sacrifice of depolarization temperature T d , seriously limiting their usage range in electromechanical applications. In this work, we propose to explore piezoelectric anisotropy and domain engineering in composition & microstructure-controlled textured ceramics to resolve this issue. [001] c -textured 0.94(Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 )TiO 3 –0.06BaTiO 3 (0.94BNT-0.06BT) ceramics with Lotgering factor F 001 ∼91% were fabricated through homoepitaxial templated grain growth (TGG) via using 0.94BNT-0.06BT microplatelet templates. The textured samples exhibited more ordered domains with facilitated domain switching behavior, being consistent with saturated high polarization achieved at lower electric fields. Increasing F 001 to above 60% enables rapid enhancement of piezoelectric response. Notably, compared to non-textured counterpart, the maximally textured ceramics exhibited ∼236% enhanced piezoelectric coefficient ( d 33 ∼302 pC/N) and ∼280% enhanced piezoelectric voltage coefficient ( g 33 ∼49.8 × 10 −3 Vm/N), together with slightly increased depolarization temperature ( T d ∼106 °C). Moreover, those values are approaching or even higher than the single-crystal values. This work not only provides important guidelines for design and synthesis of novel textured ceramics with improved comprehensive electrical properties, but also can expand application fields of BNT-based ceramics.