An easy approach to obtain high piezoelectric properties in hard PZT sintered at 950 °C

A hard Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT), which has a high electromechanical coupling factor, is used in various piezoelectric devices. However, the sintering temperature of this material is high, approximately 1100–1200 °C, restricting the usage of cheap base metal electrodes in fabrication of multi-layer components. This study shows an easy approach for a hard PZT not only to be sintered at ≤950 °C but also to have excellent piezoelectric properties. For the readers interested in the low-temperature sintering study of a PZT ceramic, it is described how the PZT compositions and additives are selected and how the experiments can be simplified in this manuscript. Consequently, 0.8 Pb(Zr0.475Ti0.525)O3–0.2 Pb[(Mg0.5Ni0.5)1/3Nb2/3]O3 + 0.5 wt% MnO2 + 0.1 wt% Li2CO3 + 0.2 wt% Fe2O3 (sintered at 950 °C) shows a high kp of 0.62, an excellent mechanical quality factor (Qm) of 1,976, and a piezoelectric constant (d33) of 350 pC/N.