Cost-Effective Production of Piezoelectric Single Crystals

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project (DARPA SBIR- Topic SB031-005) will focus on the formation of grain-oriented (textured) 0.675Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-.0.325PbTiO3 (PMN-32.5PT) ceramics for various high performance sensor and transducerapplications. NexTech proposes to grain-orient (texture) PMN-32.5PT ceramics in the in order to access a high fraction of the properties identified for rhombohedral PMN-32.5PT single crystals. Fiber texturing (1-D oriented texture) will be achievedin PMN-32.5PT planar (wafer geometry) ceramics in the by utilizing the Templated Grain Growth (TGG) process. The TGG process consists of the initial alignment of a low fraction of anisometric seed particles (templates) in the matrix duringconsolidation. The aligned templates then grow in the matrix during thermal processing, resulting in a textured ceramic. The -textured PMN-32.5PT ceramics formed in this Phase I will potentially show d33-coefficients >1200 pC/N and k33-coefficients>0.85. The texture PMN-PT ceramics could potentially replace the use of single crystals in a multitude of applications, due to the versatility of the size and shape of the textured ceramics and their much lower cost. This Phase I will provide a basis forthe formation and manufacturing of textured PMN-PT monolithic and multi-layer actuators in Phase II. Textured PMN-PT ceramics can be used for various military and commercial electromechanical transducer and sensor applications, which include aerospace,marine, biomedical, and ultrasonic industries. The -textured PMN-PT ceramics have the potential of replacing all applications currently using lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics due the enhanced piezoelectric response of the textured ceramics.The textured PMN-PT ceramics may also substitute for many potential applications of oriented PMN-PT single crystals due to the low production cost and geometrical versatility of the TGG technique.