Giant Field‐Induced Strain with Low Hysteresis and Boosted Energy Storage Performance under Low Electric Field in (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3‐Based Grain Orientation‐Controlled Ceramics

Abstract Lead‐free dielectrics with both excellent strain behavior and superior energy‐storage feature are crucial toward providing desired performance for smart electrical devices, especially under harsh environmental conditions. Herein, it is demonstrated that giant strain response of ≈0.51% with small hysteresis of ≈29% and large recoverable energy density (≈1.6 J cm −3 ) under low electric field (120 kV cm −1 ), together with excellent stabilities against temperature, frequency, and cycling, can be simultaneously achieved in oriented (with 79.4% 〈00l〉 texture) (Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 )TiO 3 –BaTiO 3 –NaNbO 3 (BNT–BT–NN) ceramics through integrating crystallographic texturing and domain engineering. Besides, a fast discharge rate of <0.1 µs along with good thermal endurance in a wide temperature range can also be acquired. It is uncovered by piezoelectric force microscopy measurements that the formation of oriented microstructure greatly promotes the domain switching and mobility, producing the considerably easy ergodic relaxor to ferroelectric phase transition with concurrently improved strain and energy storage properties in grain orientation controlled BNT–BT–NN ceramics. This study offers a feasible and propagable guidance, i.e., crystallographic texturing and domain engineering, to develop new lead‐free dielectrics for both actuators and capacitors.