Templated Grain Growth of <001> Textured PMN-28PT Using SrTiO₃Templates

Highly textured PMN-28PT (0.72Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.28PbTiO(3)) ceramics were produced by templated grain growth on < 001 > oriented platelet-shaped SrTiO3 template particles with an aspect ratio of 10-15. The templates were aligned in PMN-28PT matrix powder via tape casting and fired in an O-2-PbO atmosphere at 1150 degrees C for up to 15 h. This resulted in textured ceramics with a 40 micrometer grain size and without residual templates. The volume fraction of textured material ( f ) and the orientation parameter (r) were quantified by fitting X-ray diffraction rocking curve data to the March-Dollase equation. Processing conditions were optimized to achieve the best possible values of f and r for the chosen templates and matrix powder. A texture fraction of at least 81 vol% and an orientation parameter of 0.2 were achieved when all random matrix grains were consumed (a perfect textured ceramic would show a texture fraction of 100 vol% and an orientation parameter of 0).