Giant piezoelectric voltage coefficient in grain-oriented modified PbTiO3 material

Abstract A rapid surge in the research on piezoelectric sensors is occurring with the arrival of the Internet of Things. Single-phase oxide piezoelectric materials with giant piezoelectric voltage coefficient ( g , induced voltage under applied stress) and high Curie temperature ( T c ) are crucial towards providing desired performance for sensing, especially under harsh environmental conditions. Here, we report a grain-oriented (with 95% <001> texture) modified PbTiO 3 ceramic that has a high T c (364 °C) and an extremely large g 33 (115 × 10 −3 Vm N −1 ) in comparison with other known single-phase oxide materials. Our results reveal that self-polarization due to grain orientation along the spontaneous polarization direction plays an important role in achieving large piezoelectric response in a domain motion-confined material. The phase field simulations confirm that the large piezoelectric voltage coefficient g 33 originates from maximized piezoelectric strain coefficient d 33 and minimized dielectric permittivity ɛ 33 in [001]-textured PbTiO 3 ceramics where domain wall motions are absent.