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High piezoelectricity in (K,Na)(Nb,Sb)O3–(Bi,La,Na,Li)ZrO3 lead-free ceramics

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Abstract

A new lead-free piezoelectric system of (1 − x)(K0.48Na0.52+y )(Nb0.95Sb0.05)O3–x(Bi0.8La0.2)0.5(Na0.8Li0.2)0.5ZrO3 [(1 − x)KNa y NS–xBLNLZ] were prepared using the conventional solid-state sintering method. The effects of BLNLZ content and Na excess on the microstructure and electrical properties of the ceramics were investigated. It was found that an enhanced dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric behavior has been attained by successfully constructing the rhombohedral–tetragonal phase boundary in the ceramics with x = 0.04. The small Na excess can greatly improve ceramics properties due to the increase of abnormal grain growth caused by the formation of a small amount of liquid phase. As a result, the ceramic with x = 0.04 and y = 0.004 has optimum electrical properties of d 33 ~470 pC/N, k p ~50 %, 2P r ~32.3 μC/cm2, and 2E c ~14.2 kV/cm, together with a Curie temperature of ~210 °C. The giant d 33 of this ceramic system could be comparable with the most of the reported results about the alkali niobate-based lead-free piezoceramics. It was believed that such an excellent piezoelectricity of this material system will promote the development of KNN-based lead-free ceramics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51332003).

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  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Wangjiang Road 29, Chengdu, 610064, China

    Laiming Jiang, Jie Xing, Zhi Tan, Jiagang Wu, Qiang Chen, Dingquan Xiao & Jianguo Zhu

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  1. Laiming Jiang
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Correspondence to Jianguo Zhu.

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Jiang, L., Xing, J., Tan, Z. et al. High piezoelectricity in (K,Na)(Nb,Sb)O3–(Bi,La,Na,Li)ZrO3 lead-free ceramics. J Mater Sci 51, 4963–4972 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-016-9801-2

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