Improvement of Figure of Merit Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-Pb(Zn,Ni,Nb)O₃-Pb(In,Nb)O₃ Piezoelectric Ceramics.

Figure of merit the product of piezoelectric charge constant and the piezoelectric voltage constant-d × g in piezoelectric energy harvesting systems are critical measures in energy harvester applications. It is difficult to achieve high figure of merit because of the interdependence of d and the relative dielectric constant, ε. Until now, the prohibitive amount of effort required to solve this problem has led to it being considered an unsolvable issue. Lead zirconate titanate ceramic, Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃, has been reported to exhibit high values of d and ε. However, to be employed as piezoelectric energy harvester, a candidate material is required to exhibit both high piezoelectric charge coefficient and high piezoelectric electric voltage coefficient simultaneously. To enhance the figure of merit of Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-based materials, dopants have also been considered. Pb(Zn,Ni,Nb)O₃- added Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃, Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-Pb(Zn,Ni,Nb)O₃ ceramic has been reported to exhibit a high d value of 561 pC/N. It's dielectric constant has also been reported to be low at 1898. In this study, Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-Pb(Zn,Ni,Nb)O₃-Pb(In,Nb)O₃ was investigated in the context of enhancing the figure of merit of Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-based materials. During the proposed process, we increased the corresponding figure of merit by adding Pb(In,Nb)O₃ material. Besides exhibiting a low dielectric constant, the Pb(In,Nb)O₃ material was also observed to exhibit high d × g as the proposed doping increased the value of d greatly, while maintaining the dielectric constant (Yan, J., et al., 2019. Large engancement of trans coefficient in PZT-PZN energy harvesting system through introducing low εPIN relaxor. , pp.2666-2672). Further, we conducted an optimization experiment by controlling the doping concentration and the sintering temperature.