Recent Progress on BaTiO3-Based Piezoelectric Ceramics for Actuator Applications

• Published in: Actuators Vol. 6; no. 3; p. 24
• Main Authors: Gao, Jinghui, Xue, Dezhen, Liu, Wenfeng, Zhou, Chao, Ren, Xiaobing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.09.2017
• Subjects: Barium titanates; BaTiO3; Curie temperature; Electricity; Engineering; Lead; Lead free; morphotropic phase boundary; Pb-free ceramics; Phase boundaries; Piezoelectric ceramics; Piezoelectricity; strain; Toxicity
• ISSN: 2076-0825; 2076-0825
• DOI: 10.3390/act6030024

Due to issues with Pb toxicity, there is an urgent need for high performance Pb-free alternatives to Pb-based piezoelectric ceramics. Although pure BaTiO3 material exhibits fairly low piezoelectric coefficients, further designing of such a material system greatly enhances the piezoelectric response by means of domain engineering, defects engineering, as well as phase boundary engineering. Especially after the discovery of a Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 system with extraordinarily high piezoelectric properties (d33 > 600 pC/N), BaTiO3-based piezoelectric ceramics are considered as one of the promising Pb-free substitutes. In the present contribution, we summarize the idea of designing high property BaTiO3 piezoceramic through domain engineering, defect-doping, as well as morphotropic phase boundary (MPB). In spite of its drawback of low Curie temperature, BaTiO3-based piezoelectric materials can be considered as an excellent model system for exploring the physics of highly piezoelectric materials. The relevant material design strategy in BaTiO3-based materials can provide guidelines for the next generation of Pb-free materials with even better piezoelectric properties that can be anticipated in the near future.