Giant piezoelectric voltage coefficient in grain-oriented modified PbTiO3 material

A rapid surge in the research on piezoelectric sensors is occurring with the arrival of the Internet of Things. Single-phase oxide piezoelectric materials with giant piezoelectric voltage coefficient (g, induced voltage under applied stress) and high Curie temperature (T-c) are crucial towards providing desired performance for sensing, especially under harsh environmental conditions. Here, we report a grain-oriented (with 95% <001> texture) modified PbTiO3 ceramic that has a high T-c (364 degrees C) and an extremely large g(33) (115 x 10(-3) Vm N-1) in comparison with other known single-phase oxide materials. Our results reveal that self-polarization due to grain orientation along the spontaneous polarization direction plays an important role in achieving large piezoelectric response in a domain motion-confined material. The phase field simulations confirm that the large piezoelectric voltage coefficient g(33) originates from maximized piezoelectric strain coefficient d(33) and minimized dielectric permittivity epsilon(33) in [001]-textured PbTiO3 ceramics where domain wall motions are absent.