Oxygen Atmosphere Sintering Enhances Density and High‐Power Performance of Mn‐Doped Textured PMN‐PZT Ceramics

ABSTRACT High‐power applications demand piezoceramics that combine large piezoelectric strain coefficients d ₃₃ and low mechanical loss (high Q _m ). In this study, [001]‐textured Pb(Mg _1/3 Nb _2/3 )O ₃ ‐PbZrO ₃ ‐PbTiO ₃ (PMN‐PZT) ceramics are fabricated using BaTiO ₃ seeds to induce grain orientation and manganese doping for hardening. Notably, by leveraging the rapid oxygen transport mechanism within the perovskite lattice, ceramics sintered in an oxygen atmosphere achieves a high relative density of 98%–99%, significantly exceeding the 95.6% achieved in air. The dense textured ceramics exhibit excellent combined soft and hard properties, showing high d ₃₃ of 1025 pC/N and high Q _m of 810. Their performance under high drive is further evaluated via electrical transient response method. The results indicate that even at a high vibration velocity of 1.0 m/s, the dense ceramics maintained a high Q _m of 560, higher than that of the less‐dense textured counterparts ( Q _m = 140). Moreover, reduced strain hysteresis suggests that the dense microstructure enhances domain wall pinning, thereby mitigating mechanical losses due to inhomogeneous strain under high fields. In summary, this work demonstrates that oxygen‐atmosphere sintering effectively improves both mechanical and electrical properties in textured ceramics, showing great promise for high‐power piezoelectric applications.