More superior pyroelectric performance of synthesized dravite by high-pressure solid-state method

It’s of great significance to explore the synthesis of tourmaline with simple chemical composition to study the mechanism of its pyroelectric properties due to the presence of crystal defects and isomorphous substitution in natural tourmaline. In the present work, dravite is firstly synthesized by high pressure solid-state method at 5-6 GPa and 550-650 °C. X-ray powder diffraction and electron microprobe analysis data indicate that the synthesized sample is the compound of the dravite with the formula of NaMg3Al6Si6B3O27(OH)4 and a small amount of SiO2. Compared with the natural dravite, the pyroelectric coefficient of the synthesized dravite is improved by an order of magnitude due to the great increase of the intrinsic dipole moment in synthesized dravite. The temperature dependent infrared spectra shows that the dipole moment of each ionic group in the synthesized dravite increases with temperature, leading to the raise of the pyroelectric coefficient with the increment of temperature. And in all ionic groups, [SiO4] tetrahedron and [BO3] triangle are the most important ionic groups that caused the pyroelectricity of tourmaline.