Low‐temperature sintered 0.5Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.16PbZrO3–0.34PbTiO3 piezoelectric textured ceramics by Li2CO3 addition.

BaTiO3(BT)‐templated 0.5Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.16PbZrO3–0.34PbTiO3 with 0.2 wt% Li2CO3 (PNN‐PZT + LC) ceramics were successfully sintered at temperatures less than 1050°C. Their structural, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties were systematically investigated as a function of amount of BT, which ranged from 2 to 10 vol%. The PNN‐PZT + LC ceramics sintered at 1000°C showed highly textured morphologies with preferred (0 0 1) orientation, having Lotgering factors (fL) of 85% and higher. When sintering temperature exceeded 1000°C, the epitaxial grain growth of PNN‐PZT + LC rhombohedral phase, driven by BT templates, was hindered by dramatically enlarged matrix grains. In situ X‐ray diffractometry analyses are performed to identify phase transition behavior depending on temperature. Properties of d33 (1180 pC/N) and kp (80.3%) were obtained for the 2 vol% BT‐templated PNN‐PZT + LC ceramic sintered at 1000°C, along with ferroelectric properties of 2Pr (56.1 μC/cm2) and 2Ec (1.26 kV/mm) at 3.5 kV/mm. High‐resolution transmission electron microscopy and piezo‐response force microscopy were utilized to investigate domain structure and epitaxial grain growth between templated BaTiO3 and matrix ceramics. The low‐temperature sintered specimen showed an extremely large electrostrain characteristic (d33*) of 1215 pm/V at 1 kV/mm. Furthermore, textured multilayer piezoelectric actuators exhibited higher actuator performance and lower energy loss compared to untextured multilayer piezoelectric actuators, indicating their potential for use in piezoelectric actuator devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]