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Electromechanical properties and cycling stability of low-temperature co-fired BNT–ST multilayer piezoactuators

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Abstract

Low-temperature co-fired Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3–SrTiO3 (BNT–ST)/Ag–Pd lead-free multilayer piezoactuators (MLAs) with a large strain and excellent cycling stability were fabricated by tape casting for practical applications. Adding CuO decreased the sintering temperature of (1 − x)BNT–xST + 0.05 wt% MnO2 (BNST100x) ceramics from 1190 °C to 960 °C. A BNST25.5 ceramic with 1.2 wt% CuO outputs a large normalized strain (950 pm/V) under an ultra-low driving field (2 kV/mm). Through optimizing the material composition and ceramic layer thickness, a normalized strain of 760 pm/V at 2.5 kV/mm is realized in a BNST24 with 1.2 wt% CuO MLA with a 63 μm single-layer thickness. Fairly good cycling stability is achieved with only ∼5% reduction after 107 cycles at 4 kV/mm. At the same time, these MLAs could still deliver over 85% strain at 80 °C. A MLA prototype with commercial size outputs a total strain of 0.112% and a blocking stress of 35.4 MPa at 2.5 kV/mm, demonstrating a better performance than that of traditional commercial lead zirconate titanate (PZT) actuators.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2021381).

Funding

Funding was provided by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2021381).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610209, China

    Xing-Ye Tong, Yu-Ting Yang, Zong-Zheng Du, Min-Wei Song, Hong Liu & Chun-Lin Guan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xing-Ye Tong

  3. School of Optical and Electronic Information, Key Lab of Functional Materials for Electronic Information (B) of Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Jia-Jun Zhou

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  1. Xing-Ye Tong
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Contributions

XYT was responsible for conceptualization, investigation, and writing of the original draft. YTY and ZZD were responsible for writing, reviewing, & editing of the manuscript. MWS was responsible for test and data curation. JJZ was responsible for conceptualization, funding acquisition, and writing, reviewing, & editing of the manuscript. HL and CLG were responsible for funding acquisition and supervision.

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Correspondence to Xing-Ye Tong or Jia-Jun Zhou.

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Tong, XY., Yang, YT., Du, ZZ. et al. Electromechanical properties and cycling stability of low-temperature co-fired BNT–ST multilayer piezoactuators. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 21482–21496 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08939-7

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