Fatigue of lead zirconate titanate ceramics II:: Sesquipolar loading

Piezoelectric actuators generally are driven with unipolar electric load cycles. Although the obtainable strain is increased by small excursions into the negative field regime, this type of load cycle is rarely considered, as its long-time reliability has been questioned. Here, we investigate the degradation of lead zirconate titanate during cycling between high positive and low negative electric fields. Measurements of the large and small signal parameters are used to quantify changes of the material. The fatigue behavior shifts from one best described with existing models of unipolar fatigue to bipolar-like fatigue with increasing field amplitude.