The piezoelectric properties of lead zirconate titanate [Pb(Zr,Ti)O ₃ or PZT] ceramics could be enhanced by fabricating textured ceramics that would align the crystal grains along specific orientations. We present a seed-passivated texturing process to fabricate textured PZT ceramics by using newly developed Ba(Zr,Ti)O ₃ microplatelet templates. This process not only ensures the template-induced grain growth in titanium-rich PZT layers but also facilitates desired composition through interlayer diffusion of zirconium and titanium. We successfully prepared textured PZT ceramics with outstanding properties, including Curie temperatures of 360°C, piezoelectric coefficients d ₃₃ of 760 picocoulombs per newton and g ₃₃ of 100 millivolt meters per newton, and electromechanical couplings k ₃₃ of 0.85. This study addresses the challenge of fabricating textured rhombohedral PZT ceramics by suppressing the otherwise severe chemical reaction between PZT powder and titanate templates.

The figure-of-merits of ferroelectrics for transducer applications are their electromechanical coupling factor and the operable temperature range. Relaxor-PbTiO₃ferroelectric crystals show a much improved electromechanical coupling factork₃₃(88~93%) compared to their ceramic counterparts (65~78%) by taking advantage of the strong anisotropy of crystals. However, only a few relaxor-PbTiO₃systems, for example Pb(In_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃-Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃, can be grown into single crystals, whose operable temperature range is limited by their rhombohedral-tetragonal phase transition temperatures (T_rt: 60~120 °C). Here, we develop a templated grain-growth approach to fabricate -textured Pb(In_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃-Pb(Sc_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃-PbTiO₃(PIN-PSN-PT) ceramics that contain a large amount of the refractory component Sc₂O₃, which has the ability to increase theT_rtof the system. The highk₃₃of 85~89% and the greatly increasedT_rtof 160~200 °C are simultaneously achieved in the textured PIN-PSN-PT ceramics. The above merits will make textured PIN-PSN-PT ceramics an alternative to single crystals, benefiting the development of numerous advanced piezoelectric devices.