Correlation between electric-field-induced phase transition and piezoelectricity in lead zirconate titanate films

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that electric-field-induced phase transitions in PZT films significantly enhance their piezoelectric properties, suggesting potential for optimizing piezoelectric coefficients through composition tuning.

Contribution

It reveals the correlation between phase transition magnitude and piezoelectric response in PZT films, proposing a method to enhance d33,eff by optimizing phase transition via composition adjustments.

Findings

Electric field induces tetragonal to rhombohedral phase transition in PZT films.

Larger phase transition correlates with higher piezoelectric coefficient d33,eff.

Potential to increase d33,eff to 250 pm/V through composition tuning.

Abstract

We observed that electric field induces phase transition from tetragonal to rhombohedral in polycrystalline morphotropic lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films, as reported in 2011 for bulk PZT. Moreover, we evidenced that this field-induced phase transition is strongly correlated with PZT film piezoelectric properties, that is to say the larger the phase transition, the larger the longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient d 33,eff . Although d 33,eff is already comprised between as 150 to 170 pm/V, our observation suggests that one could obtain larger d 33,eff values, namely 250 pm/V, by optimizing the field-induced phase transition thanks to composition fine tuning.