The electrostrictive effect has some advantages over the piezoelectric effect, including temperature stability and hysteresis-free character. In the present work, we report the diffuse phase transitions and electrostrictive properties in lead-free Fe3+-doped 0.5Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3-0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (BZT-0.5BCT) ferroelectric ceramics. The doping concentration was set from 0.25 to 2 mol %. It is found that by introducing Fe3+ ion into BZT-0.5BCT, the temperature corresponding to permittivity maximum Tm was shifted toward lower temperature monotonically by 37 °C per mol % Fe3+ ion. Simultaneously, the phase transitions gradually changed from classical ferroelectric-to-paraelectric phase transitions into diffuse phase transitions with a weak relaxor characteristic. Purely electrostrictive responses with giant electrostrictive coefficient Q33 between 0.04 and 0.05 m4/C2 are observed from 25 to 100 °C for the compositions doped with 1-2 mol % Fe3+ ion. The Q33 of Fe3+-doped BZT-0.5BCT ceramics is almost twice the Q33 of other ferroelectric ceramics. These observations suggest that the present system can be considered as a potential lead-free material for the applications in electrostrictive area and that BT-based ferroelectric ceramics would have giant electrostrictive coefficient over other ferroelectric systems.
Keywords: diffuse phase transition; doping; electrostriction; ferroelectric; lead-free.