Giant strain with ultra-low hysteresis and high temperature stability in grain oriented lead-free K0.5Bi0.5TiO3-BaTiO3-Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 piezoelectric materials

We synthesized grain-oriented lead-free piezoelectric materials in (K0.5Bi0.5TiO3-BaTiO3-xNa(0.5)Bi(0.5)TiO(3) (KBT-BT-NBT) system with high degree of texturing along the [001]c (c-cubic) crystallographic orientation. We demonstrate giant field induced strain (similar to 0.48%) with an ultra-low hysteresis along with enhanced piezoelectric response (d(33) similar to 190pC/N) and high temperature stability (similar to 160 degrees C). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) results demonstrate smaller size highly ordered domain structure in grain-oriented specimen relative to the conventional polycrystalline ceramics. The grain oriented specimens exhibited a high degree of non-180 degrees domain switching, in comparison to the randomly axed ones. These results indicate the effective solution to the lead-free piezoelectric materials.