Enhanced Piezoelectric Properties and Temperature Stability of 0.5BZT-0.5BCT Ceramic Induced by Using Three-Step Synthesizing Method

(1-x)BaZr0.2Ti0.8O3-xBa0.7Ca0.3TiO3 (BZT-xBCT) system is a lead-free piezoelectric material with excellent piezoelectric response. But the temperature instability has seriously restricted the application of this system. In this work, the influence of precursor and synthesizing method on the piezoelectric temperature stability has been studied. And the results show that the piezoelectric temperature stability could be substantially improved by using suitable precursor and synthesizing method. The BZT-0.5BCT ceramic synthesized by using three-step synthesizing method has a huge piezoelectric constant (d33 = 668 pC/N) and meanwhile has a good temperature stability. The SEM and XRD analysis show that the excellent piezoelectric properties are related to ceramic grain size and phase structure. Moreover, our result provides a simple and efficient method to improve the piezoelectric properties of the BZT-0.5BCT system and could accelerate application process of the ceramics.