Cost-Effective Acicular Seed Production for SSC Piezoelectric Single Crystal Materials

MSI has developed a method of producing solid state converted (SSC) relaxor ferroelectrics that involved recrystallization through the addition of orientable seeds that act as nucleation sites in the ceramic matrix. MSI has explored both integrated seed and epitaxial approaches to SSC. SSC has been demonstrated to produce a highly textured material with property enhancements. One remaining obstacle to a truly low cost SSC single crystal manufacturing process is a high-rate production for seeds. In this Phase II SBIR program, MSI will develop two low-cost BaTiO3 seed production methods in parallel. The processes will be evaluated based on: the yield of seed material produced per week, the cost of the process, the amount of seed material needed to convert PMN-PT, and the effectiveness of the seed material to convert PMN-PT. The overall emphasis of this program on reducing cost of producing SSC PMN-PT material and the resultant final cost of the actuator or transducer device.