Giant electrostrain of 0.57% in a periodically orthogonal poled lead titanate zirconate ceramic via reversible domain switching

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel domain engineering approach in PZT ceramics that achieves a giant, reversible electrostrain of 0.57%, significantly surpassing typical strains in ferroelectric actuators, with high stability over many cycles.

Contribution

The study introduces a periodically orthogonal poling technique to enable reversible non-180° domain switching, resulting in large, stable electrostrains in PZT ceramics.

Findings

Achieved 0.57% electrostrain at 2kV/mm

Electrostrain remains stable and slightly increases after 10,000 cycles

Reversible non-180° domain switching enabled by domain engineering

Abstract

The widely used ferroelectric ceramics based actuators always suffer from small output strains (typically ~0.1-0.15%). Non-180{\deg} domain switching can generate large strain in ferroelectrics but it is usually irreversible. In this work, we tailored the domain structures in a soft lead titanate zirconate (PZT) ceramic by periodically orthogonal poling. The non-180{\deg} switching in this domain-engineered PZT ceramics turns to be reversible, resulting in giant electrostrains up to 0.57% under a field of 2kV/mm (dynamic d33*(=S/E) of 2850pm/V). The large electrostrain keeps quite stable and even slightly increases after 10000 cycles of loading, which is very promising for next-generation large-strain actuators.