Giant piezoelectricity of Sm-doped Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 single crystals

Fei Li; Matthew J Cabral; Bin Xu; Zhenxiang Cheng; Elizabeth C Dickey; James M LeBeau; Jianli Wang; Jun Luo; Samuel Taylor; Wesley Hackenberger; Laurent Bellaiche; Zhuo Xu; Long-Qing Chen; Thomas R Shrout; Shujun Zhang

doi:10.1126/science.aaw2781

Giant piezoelectricity of Sm-doped Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ single crystals

Science. 2019 Apr 19;364(6437):264-268. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw2781. Epub 2019 Apr 18.

Authors

Fei Li^{1

2}, Matthew J Cabral³, Bin Xu^{4

5}, Zhenxiang Cheng⁶, Elizabeth C Dickey³, James M LeBeau³, Jianli Wang⁶, Jun Luo⁷, Samuel Taylor⁷, Wesley Hackenberger⁷, Laurent Bellaiche⁵, Zhuo Xu⁸, Long-Qing Chen², Thomas R Shrout², Shujun Zhang^{9

6}

Affiliations

¹ Electronic Materials Research Lab, Key Lab of Education Ministry/International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. ful5@xjtu.edu.cn shujun@uow.edu.au.
² Materials Research Institute, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
⁴ School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China.
⁵ Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering and Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
⁶ ISEM, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.
⁷ TRS Technologies Inc., 2820 East College Avenue, State College, PA 16801, USA.
⁸ Electronic Materials Research Lab, Key Lab of Education Ministry/International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
⁹ Materials Research Institute, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ful5@xjtu.edu.cn shujun@uow.edu.au.

PMID: 31000659
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw2781

Abstract

High-performance piezoelectrics benefit transducers and sensors in a variety of electromechanical applications. The materials with the highest piezoelectric charge coefficients (d ₃₃) are relaxor-PbTiO₃ crystals, which were discovered two decades ago. We successfully grew Sm-doped Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (Sm-PMN-PT) single crystals with even higher d ₃₃ values ranging from 3400 to 4100 picocoulombs per newton, with variation below 20% over the as-grown crystal boule, exhibiting good property uniformity. We characterized the Sm-PMN-PT on the atomic scale with scanning transmission electron microscopy and made first-principles calculations to determine that the giant piezoelectric properties arise from the enhanced local structural heterogeneity introduced by Sm³⁺ dopants. Rare-earth doping is thus identified as a general strategy for introducing local structural heterogeneity in order to enhance the piezoelectricity of relaxor ferroelectric crystals.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.