The growth and properties of lead-free ferroelectric single crystals

Abstract

Much attention is drawn to the preparation, structure and properties investigation of lead-free ferroelectrics for the next generation of piezoelectric devices. (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3-BaTiO3 (NBT-BT) lead-free solid solution piezoelectric single crystals with composition x in the range of 0–0.05 as a materials with high piezoelectric properties were successfully grown from platinum crucible by using the top-seeded solution growth (TSSG) method. The dimensions of NBT-BT crystal is Ø40 × 10 mm2. X-ray powder diffraction patterns reveal that the crystal structure of NBT-BT crystal changes from rhombohedral to tetragonal symmetry with increasing amounts of BT(x). The dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of NBT-BT crystals with different compositions near the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) were studied systematically. Ions (Mn, Eu, Zn) doped NBT and NBT-BT 95/5 crystals were also grown and studied. In addition, their piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties are investigated. Further, a high-quality and large-sized (K0.25Na0.75)NbO3 (KNN25/75) single crystal has been achieved by a carefully controlled TSSG method. The dimensions of the as-grown KNN25/75 single crystal reached up to Ø30 × 10 mm2. The obtained KNN crystals provided us a superb material for the dielectric, piezoelectric, ferroelectric and electromechanical coupling property characterization along different orientations.