Enhanced piezoelectrical properties of Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O₃ - PbTiO₃ single crystals by AC poling

We investigated the effectiveness of AC poling (ACP) processes for [001] direction oriented Pb(Zn 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -0.055PbTiO 3 (PZN-PT) single crystals (SCs) and obtained a dielectric constant ε 33 T / ε 0 of 6680 and piezoelectric strain constant d 33 of 2760 pC/N, a piezoelectric charge constant g 33 of 46.7 × 10 −3 Vm/N, and a figure of merit (FOM) ( d 33 × g 33 ) of 129 × 10 −12 m 2 /N. These values were 19%, 31%, 10%, and 45% higher than those of DC poling PZN-PT SC, respectively. The phase change temperature T pc , Curie temperature T c , and acoustic impedance ( Z 33 ) of the ACP PZN-PT SC were 121 °C, 165 °C, and 30.5 MRayls, respectively. Compared with Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 −0.3PbTiO 3 SCs, the higher T pc , T c , and FOM and lower Z 33 of the PZN-PT SCs enable the applications in high temperature with superior Z 33 matching to water and human body than conventional Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 −0.3PbTiO 3 SCs , and these findings are vital for a wide range of ultrasonic transducer applications.