Influence of particle size on 3D‐printed piezoelectric ceramics via digital light processing with furnace sintering

To improve the properties of BaTiO3 piezoelectric ceramics fabricated by 3D printing, effects of particle size were investigated on the properties of ceramic slurries and the electrical properties of BaTiO3 fabricated by Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing method. It was found that the curing ability of the slurries decreased significantly when the particle size is close to the ultraviolet wavelength, while the viscosity kept decreasing with the increase of particle size. When the particle size in a range of submicron (d50<1 μm), the grain size of sintered ceramics decreased from 13.27 to 6.84 μm as particle size increasing. Moreover, the piezoelectric constant and relative permittivity of sintered ceramics were measured, and it turns out to reach 168.1 pC/N and 1512, respectively, while using the BaTiO3 powder with particle size of 993 nm. Finally, a cellular structural BaTiO3 ceramics was fabricated by using optimized powder and process parameters and packaged as a piezoelectric sensor, showing a good function of force-electricity conversion. These results demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating high-quality functional ceramics with designed geometry by DLP.