Ultrahigh electrostrain with excellent fatigue resistance in textured Nb^(5+)-doped(Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5))TiO3-based piezoceramics

(Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5))TiO_(3)(BNT)-based lead-free piezoceramics exhibit excellent electric field-induced strain(electrostrain)properties,but often suffer from large hysteresis and poor fatigue resistance,which strongly limit their applications.Here,<00l>textured Nb5+-doped 0.8(Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5))TiO_(3)–0.2(Bi_(0.5)K_(0.5))TiO_(3)(0.8BNT–0.2BKT)ceramics with a high degree of texturing(~80%)were prepared by the reactive template grain growth(RTGG)method using Bi4Ti3O12 as a template.By the combination of donor doping in the B-site and the RTGG method,the electrostrain performance achieves a significant enhancement.A high electrostrain of 0.65%and a piezoelectric coefficient(*33 d)of 1083 pm/V with reduced hysteresis at an electric field of 6 kV/mm are obtained.No electrostrain performance degradation is observed after unipolar electric field loading of 10^(5)cycles,showing excellent fatigue endurance.These results indicate that the texturing BNT-based lead-free piezoceramics by the RTGG method is a useful approach to developing eco-friendly actuators.

Optimized strain performance in <001>-textured Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5)TiO_(3)-based ceramics with ergodic relaxor state and core-shell microstructure

Herein,a high strain of ~0.3% with a small hysteresis of 43% is achieved at a low electric field of 4 kV/mm in the highly <001>-textured 0.97(0.76Bi_(0.5)Na_(0.5)TiO_(3)-0.24SrTiO_(3))-0.03NaNbO_(3)(BNT-ST-0.03NN)ceramics with an ergodic relaxor(ER)state,leading to a large normalized strain(d_(33)^(*))of 720 pm/V.The introduction of NN templates into BNT-ST induces the grain orientation growth and enhances the ergodicity.The highly <001>-textured BNT-ST-0.03NN ceramics display a pure ergodic relaxor state with coexisted ferroelectric R3c and antiferroelectric P4bm polar nanoregions(PNRs)on nanoscale.Moreover,due to the incomplete interdiffusion between the NN template and BNT-ST matrix,the textured ceramics present a core-shell structure with the antiferroelectric NN core,and thus the BNT-based matrix owns more R3c PNRs relative to the homogeneous nontextured samples.The high <001> crystallographic texture and more R3c PNRs both facilitate the relaxor-to-ferroelectric transition,leading to the low-field-driven high strain,while the ergodic relaxor state ensures a small hysteresis.Furthermore,the d_(33)^(*)value remains high up to 518 pm/V at 100℃ with an ultra-low hysteresis of 6%.