Enhanced Electrical Properties of Textured NBBT Ceramics Derived From the Screen Printing Technique

< 001 >(pc)-oriented (Na(0.5)Bi(0.5))(0.94)Ba(0.06)TiO(3) (NBBT) lead-free piezoelectric ceramics were fabricated by the screen printing technique using Na(0.5)Bi(0.5)TiO(3) (NBT) templates. The plate-like NBT template particles were synthesized from bismuth layer-structured ferroelectric Bi(4)Ti(3)O(12) (BiT) precursors by the topochemical method. The screen printed NBBT ceramics with 20 wt% NBT templates contained a large fraction of grains aligned with their c-axis normal to the sample surface, giving a Lotgering factor of 0.486. The dielectric and ferroelectric properties of textured NBBT ceramics were anisotropic. Compared with the non-textured NBBT ceramics, the dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties of the textured NBBT ceramics were improved, giving a dielectric constant epsilon(T)(33)/epsilon(0) T /of 910, a remnant polarization P(r) of 29.2 mu C/cm(2), a coercive field E(c) of 23.5 kV/cm, a piezoelectric coefficient d(33) of 180 pC/N, and a thickness-mode electromechanical coupling coefficient kappa(t) of 0.485.