Effect of different templates and texture on structure evolution and strain behavior of <001>-textured lead-free piezoelectric BNT-based ceramics.

In this work, <001> oriented 0.90(Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 )TiO 3 –0.05KNbO 3 –0.05SrTiO 3 (BNT–KN–ST) ceramics with high degree of texturing were produced by templated grain growth using different perovskite plate-like (Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 )TiO 3 and SrTiO 3 as template particles. The effects of different template particles on the grain orientation, structure evolution, phase stability and strain response was systematically investigated to develop the lead-free piezoelectric materials with an excellent actuating performance. The strain response increased monotonously with the increase in the degree of texturing and the optimized microstructure was found to provide excellent strain properties with a large strain of 0.38% and normalized strain S max / E max = 540 pm/V for the textured samples with BNT template particles at room temperature as compared to the random counterparts. The temperature-dependent strain response is also compared to randomly oriented ceramics and the results demonstrated that the textured piezoceramics with BNT template particles exhibited the enhancement in the temperature stability over the temperature range room temperature-120 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]