Enhanced grain orientation degree and electrical properties in PSN-PMN-PT textured ceramics under the effect of sintering aids

In this work, texturing is proposed to improve the piezoelectric response of PSN-PMN-PT ceramics. The PSN-PMN-PT textured ceramic with a Lotgering factor F 001 higher than 99% was synthesized by the liquid-phase-assisted template grain growth (TGG) method. The addition of CuO/B 2 O 3 sintering aids improves the BT templates induced grain orientation growth behavior significantly. In comparison with its random counterpart, the Cu/B-T textured ceramic exhibits a high Lotgering factor F 001 of 99% and significantly enhanced dielectric and piezoelectric responses: ε r ∼ 3100, tan δ ∼ 0.8%, d 33 ∼ 1030 pC N –1 , d 33 ⋅ g 33 ∼ 34.2 × 10 –12 m 2 N –1 , d 33 * ∼ 1490 pm V –1 @5 kV cm –1 , S max ∼ 0.26%@20 kV cm –1 and H s ∼ 8.5%. In the meantime, good temperature stability is observed in the Cu/B-T textured ceramic with a variation of d 33 *@20 kV cm –1 and annealed d 33 lower than 9.68% and 18.1% over a wide temperature range of 25–140 °C. This work shows that PSN-PMN-PT textured ceramic (Cu/B-T) has great potential for electromechanical device applications such as precision actuators, ultrasound transducers, and energy harvesters.