Achieving enhanced piezoelectric properties in BiFeO₃-PbTiO₃ based ceramics by a synergistic effects of texturing and structure engineering in reactive template grain growth-like process

A synergistic strategy of texturing and structure engineering in reactive template grain growth-like process has been validated on fabricating 0.66Bi_0.9Sm_0.1FeO₃-0.34PbTiO₃ piezoelectric ceramics with enhanced properties. A considerable texture degree is successfully obtained by optimizing sintering conditions. The template is fully dissolved into the matrix after sintering, driving a structure transformation from rhombohedral to pseudo-cubic phase. In comparison to its non-textured counterpart, the textured ceramics show a 69 % increase on large-signal piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃* and a 43 % increase on small-signal piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃. Good high temperature piezoelectric performance is also revealed. At 225 °C, the maximum strain and calculated d₃₃* are 0.22 % and 436 pm/V, respectively, which increase by 49 % compared with corresponding parameters at room temperature. The study not only signify a promising strategy to design high performance BFO based functional materials, but also broaden the scope of texture technology in the development of piezoelectric ceramics.