Comparison of field-cooling DC poling and AC poling for lead perovskite relaxor-PbTiO3 single crystals grown by a continuous feeding Bridgman process

Abstract We investigated the effectiveness of poling processes for Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -PbTiO 3 single crystals (SCs) produced using a continuous feeding Bridgman method, which is known to produce a high property uniformity. The four studied poling processes are: (I) standard direct current poling (STD-DCP); (II) low-voltage field-cooling DCP (LV-FCP); (III) high-voltage field-cooling DCP (HV-FCP); and (IV) mid-temperature alternating current poling (MT-ACP). The highest free dielectric constant ( ε 33 T / ε 0 ) and piezoelectric constant ( d 33 ) were obtained by MT-ACP ( ε 33 T / ε 0 = 11 000, d 33 = 3000 pC/N), followed by LV-FCP ( ε 33 T / ε 0 = 7500, d 33 = 2400 pC/N), HV-FCP ( ε 33 T / ε 0 = 6250, d 33 = 1850 pC/N), and STD-DCP ( ε 33 T / ε 0 = 6200, d 33 = 1800 pC/N). The LV-FCP SC showed a 21% and 33% increase in ε 33 T / ε 0 and d 33 compared to that of the STD-DCP SC; however, this was not as much as the 77% and 67% improvement of the MT-ACP SC. These results provide guidance for SC transducers.