Ultrahigh thermal stability and piezoelectricity of lead-free KNN-based texture piezoceramics

Lihui Xu; Jinfeng Lin; Yuxuan Yang; Zhihao Zhao; Xiaoming Shi; Guanglong Ge; Jin Qian; Cheng Shi; Guohui Li; Simin Wang; Yang Zhang; Peng Li; Bo Shen; Zhengqian Fu; Haijun Wu; Houbing Huang; Fei Li; Xiangdong Ding; Jun Sun; Jiwei Zhai

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-53437-5

Ultrahigh thermal stability and piezoelectricity of lead-free KNN-based texture piezoceramics

Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 18;15(1):9018. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53437-5.

Authors

Lihui Xu^#¹, Jinfeng Lin^#¹, Yuxuan Yang^#², Zhihao Zhao², Xiaoming Shi³, Guanglong Ge¹, Jin Qian¹, Cheng Shi¹, Guohui Li¹, Simin Wang¹, Yang Zhang², Peng Li⁴, Bo Shen⁵, Zhengqian Fu⁶, Haijun Wu⁷, Houbing Huang⁸, Fei Li², Xiangdong Ding², Jun Sun², Jiwei Zhai⁹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
² State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, PR China.
³ Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng, China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].
⁶ Chinese Acad Sci, Shanghai Inst Ceram, State Key Lab High Performance Ceram & Superfine, Shanghai, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, PR China. [email protected].
⁸ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. [email protected].
⁹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39424820
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53437-5

Abstract

The contradiction between high piezoelectricity and uniquely poor temperature stability generated by polymorphic phase boundary is a huge obstacle to high-performance (K, Na)NbO₃ -based ceramics entering the application market as Pb-based substitutes. We possess the phase boundary by mimicking Pb(Zr, Ti)O₃'s morphotropic phase boundary structure via the synergistic optimization of diffusion phase boundary and crystal orientation in 0.94(Na_0.56K_0.44)NbO₃-0.03Bi_0.5Na_0.5ZrO₃-0.03(Bi_0.5K_0.5)HfO₃ textured ceramics. As a result, a prominent comprehensive performance is obtained, including giant d₃₃ of 550 ± 30 pC/N and ultrahigh temperature stability (d₃₃ change rate less than 1.2% within 25-150 °C), representing a significant breakthrough in lead-free piezoceramics, even surpassing the Pb-based piezoelectric ceramics. Within the same temperature range, the d₃₃ change rate of the commercial Pb(Zr, Ti)O₃-5 ceramics is only about 10%, and more importantly, its d₃₃ (~ 350 pC/N) is much lower than that of the (K, Na)NbO₃-based ceramics in this work. This study demonstrates a strategy for constructing the phase boundary with MPB feature, settling the problem of temperature instability in (K, Na)NbO₃-based ceramics.