Piezoelectric properties and temperature stability of Mn-doped Pb(Mg _1/3Nb _2/3)-PbZrO ₃-PbTiO ₃ textured ceramics

In this letter, we report the electromechanical properties of textured 0.4Pb(Mg _1/3Nb _2/3)O ₃-0.25PbZrO ₃-0.35PbTiO ₃ (PMN-PZT) composition which has relatively high rhombohedral to tetragonal (R-T) transition temperature (T _R-T of 160 °C) and Curie temperature (T _C of 234 C) and explore the effect of Mn-doping on this composition. It was found that MnO ₂-doped textured PMN-PZT ceramics with 5 vol. BaTiO ₃ template (T-5BT) exhibited inferior temperature stability. The coupling factor (k ₃₁) of T-5BT ceramic started to degrade from 75 °C while the random counterpart showed a very stable tendency up to 180 °C. This degradation was associated with the "interface region" formed in the vicinity of BT template. MnO ₂ doped PMN-PZT ceramics textured with 3 vol. BT and subsequently poled at 140 C (T-3BT140) exhibited very stable and high k ₃₁ (>0.53) in a wide temperature range from room temperature to 130 C through reduction in the interface region volume. Further, the T-3BT140 ceramic exhibited excellent hard and soft combinatory piezoelectric properties of d ₃₃ 720 pC/N, k ₃₁ 0.53, Q _m 403, tan δ = 0.3 which are very promising for high power and magnetoelectric applications.