Development of a Templated Grain Growth System for Texturing Piezoelectric Ceramics

High strain actuation can be obtained from crystallographically textured piezoelectric ceramics. Single crystal piezoelectrics demonstrate high strain because crystal orientation can be controlled - the perfect lattice simplifies crystal orientation. Single crystals actuate better than typical ceramics, but are expensive. Highly textured ceramics offer an alternative path to easily aligned crystals. The crystallites in textured ceramics are crystallographically oriented. Textured ceramics are expected to provide improved properties, with lower processing costs. NexTech Materials is developing textured piezoelectrics via Templated Grain Growth. In this process, anisotropic template particles are oriented in a fine matrix. During heat treatment, the templates grow, resulting in a textured polycrystal.