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 F001 higher than 99% was synthesized by the liquid-phase-assisted template grain growth (TGG) method. The addition of CuO/B2O3 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 F001 of 99% and significantly enhanced dielectric and piezoelectric responses: εr ∼ 3100, tanδ ∼ 0.8%, d33 ∼ 1030 pC N–1, d33⋅g33 ∼ 34.2 × 10–12 m2 N–1, d33* ∼ 1490 pm V–1@5 kV cm–1, Smax ∼ 0.26%@20 kV cm–1 and Hs ∼ 8.5%. In the meantime, good temperature stability is observed in the Cu/B-T textured ceramic with a variation of d33*@20 kV cm–1 and annealed d33 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.