Large electrostrain response in binary Bi1/2Na1/2TiO3-Ba(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3 solid solution ceramics

A binary solid solution (1-x)Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-xBa(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3 ((1-x)BNT-xBMN) was fabricated by the conventional solid state reaction, and compositionally dependent micro-structure and macro-electrical properties were systematically investigated. The BMN substitution was found to induce a transition from dominant ferroelectric to ergodic relaxor phase, resulting in the ferroelectric-to-relaxor phase transition temperature decreasing from 102 degrees C to below room temperature. Accordingly, the optimal piezoelectric property of d(33) = 122 pC/N and the maximum strain of 0.35% with normalized strain of 493 pm/V were achieved at ambient temperature for the compositions with x = 0.044 and 0.052, respectively. The piezoelectric and strain properties are dominated by the contributions from the irreversible domain switching and the recoverable ergodic-ferroelectric phase transition, respectively. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.