Large electric field induced strain of Bi(Mg1/2Ti1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 ceramics textured by Template Grain Growth.

• Highly <001> oriented BMT-PMN-PT textured ceramics were fabricated by template grain growth. • The crystal structure, microstructure, and dielectric, ferroelectric and strain properties of textured ceramics were systematically studied. • A large strain of 0.42 % at 4 kV/mm was obtained in 0.25BMT-0.45PMN-0.3PT textured ceramics. • The strain of BMT-PMN-PT textured ceramics have a relatively high thermal stability. <001> oriented x Bi(Mg 1/2 Ti 1/2)O 3 -(0.7- x)Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3)O 3 -0.3PbTiO 3 (BMT-PMN-PT) textured ceramics are successfully fabricated by the template grain growth method using BaTiO 3 platelets as template. BMT-PMN-PT textured ceramics with different BMT contents are studied in terms of crystal structure, microstructures, dielectric and ferroelectric properties, and electric field induced strain. The as-fabricated BMT-PMN-PT textured ceramics were found to have a strong orientation along <001> direction. The frequency dispersion of dielectric constant of BMT-PMN-PT textured ceramics increases gradually and its relaxability becomes stronger with increasing BMT content. A large electric-field induced strain (0.42 % at 4 kV/mm) is obtained in 0.25BMT-0.45PMN-0.3PT textured ceramics with Lotgering factor 0.94, which is about 83 % enhancement than that of the randomly oriented ceramics (0.23 % at 4 kV/mm). The strain of 0.25BMT-0.45PMN-0.3PT textured ceramics have a relatively high thermal stability, with a slight decrease from 0.42 % to 0.28 % in the temperature range of 20−100 °C. Our research suggests that 0.25BMT-0.45PMN-0.3PT textured ceramics have a greatly potential for actuator devices applications owing to its advantages of large electric field induced strain response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]