Influence of Mn2+ on the electrical properties of textured KNN thick films

Abstract Textured K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 thick film was prepared by the reactive templated grain growth method. The effects of Mn 2+ doping on the phase structure, microstructure and electrical properties of the K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 textured thick film were investigated. The grain orientation degree decreased with increasing Mn 2+ and reduced to 50% for the thick film with 5 mol% Mn 2+ . The addition of Mn 2+ improved the microstructure of the thick film. The electric properties of the thick film were also enhanced because of the high densification, the vacancy compensation effect and the acceptor doping effects of Mn 2+ . The K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 thick film with 2 mol% Mn 2+ doping possessed the optimum properties: P r = 3.05 μC/cm 2 , E c = 4.79 kV/cm, J = 4.6 × 10 −6 A/cm 2 (at 25 kV/cm) and d 33 * = 124 pm/V .