Alkaline Earth Substituting Induced MPB Evolution and Property Enhancement in Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbZrO3-PbTiO3:Sm

Liang Cao; Jiajia Wang; Feifan Hu; Huihui Liu; Jian Guo; Haoran Yu; Mingyuan Yan; Ji Zhang; Feifei Wang; Yiping Wang; Shan-Tao Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsami.5c07669

Alkaline Earth Substituting Induced MPB Evolution and Property Enhancement in Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbZrO₃-PbTiO₃:Sm

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025 Jul 4. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c07669. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Liang Cao¹, Jiajia Wang², Feifan Hu³, Huihui Liu⁴, Jian Guo¹, Haoran Yu¹, Mingyuan Yan¹, Ji Zhang², Feifei Wang³, Yiping Wang⁴, Shan-Tao Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences & Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science & Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Material and Device, Department of Physics, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control for Aerospace Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.

PMID: 40614239
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c07669

Abstract

In this work, based on the lanthanide rare earth Sm³⁺ doped 0.2Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-(0.8-x)PbZrO₃-xPbTiO₃:0.015Sm ceramics with a rhombohedral-tetragonal morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) around x = 0.40, we gradually introduced alkaline earth Ba²⁺ and Sr²⁺ at the A-site to substitute Pb²⁺, namely, 0.2A(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-0.4AZrO₃-0.4ATiO₃:0.015Sm (A = Pb_0.99-yBa_0.01Sr_y) and conducted a systematic study on their phase structure, domain configuration, and electrical properties. The results indicate that without alkaline earth substituting, the MPB composition shows peak electrical property with piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃ = 477 pC/N and electromechanical coupling factor k_p = 0.59, while an appropriate amount of alkaline earth substituting changes the MPB from rhombohedral-tetragonal coexisting phases to rhombohedral-monoclinic-tetragonal coexisting phases, leading to a significant enhancement in electrical properties with d₃₃ = 687 pC/N and k_p = 0.63 around y = 0.03 for comparison. This work classifies the mechanism for alkaline earth substituting enhanced piezoelectric performance and may provide a guide for the development of high-performance lead-based relaxor ferroelectrics.

Keywords: Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbZrO3-PbTiO3; domain; electrical property; morphotropic phase boundary; piezoelectric ceramics.