Shear piezoelectric coefficients of PZT, LiNbO3 and PMN-PT at cryogenic temperatures

Abstract

Piezoelectric transducers are used to detect stress and to generate nanometer scale displacements but their piezoelectric coefficients decrease with temperature, limiting their performance in cryogenic applications. We have developed a capacitive technique and directly measured the temperature dependence of the shear coefficient d15 for ceramic lead zirconium titanate (PZT), 41° X-cut lithium niobate (LiNbO3) and single crystal lead magnesium niobium-lead titanate (PMN-PT). In PZT, d15 decreases nearly linearly with temperature, dropping by factor of about 4 by 1.3 K. LiNbO3 has the smallest room temperature d15, but its value decreased by only 6% at the lowest temperatures. PMN-PT had the largest value of d15 at room temperature (2.9 × 10-9 m/V, about 45 times larger than for LiNbO3) but it decreased rapidly below 75 K; at 1.3 K, d15 was only about 8% of its room temperature value.