Preparation and characterization of piezoelectric ceramics with high electromechanical coupling coefficient

Piezoelectric ceramics 0.02Pb(Sb1/2Nb1/2)O-3-0.98Pb((1-)(x)())Ba(x)Zr(0.52)Ti(0.48)O(3) (PSN-PBZT) were fabricated by the traditional solid-state reaction method. The X-ray diffraction was used to analyze the lattice structure of prepared ceramics and a pure tetragonal perovskite structure was identified in all the samples. The grain size of the samples observed from SEM decreases with increasing Ba2+ contents. The ceramic of x = 0.04 shows optimal performance with a large piezoelectric constant d(33) (similar to 502 pC/N) and a high electromechanical coupling efficient k(p) (similar to 0.85). Furthermore, the piezoelectric properties of this sample exhibit a good temperature stability and the fluctuation of k(p) and d(33) is only about 5.0% and 8.2%, respectively, over a broad temperature range from 0 degrees C to 100 degrees C. These properties make this ceramic a good candidate material for the practical applications in a wide temperature range.