Crystal Structure Analysis of Barium Titanate – Bismuth Perovskite-Type Oxide System Ceramics and their Piezoelectric Property

Barium titanate (BaTiO3, BT) – bismuth lanthanum zinc titanium oxide [(BiyLa1-y)(Zn0.5Ti0.5)O3, ByL1-yZT] solid solution ceramics were prepared to enhance Curie temperature (TC) of BT, 132 ˚C, to 200 ˚C. As the raw materials, nanoparticles were used to make sintering temperatures lower. Optimization of calcination and sintering conditions resulted in a formation of a perovskite single-phase, and their densities were always greater than 94 %. The synchrotron XRD measurement revealed that the crystal structures were assigned to rhombohedral 3m. Temperature dependence of dielectric property revealed that for the 0.5BT-0.5BZT ceramics, TC was 230 ˚C. Moreover, La-doping into BT-BZT ceramics resulted in decrease of TC significantly. Finally, their piezoelectric properties were measured by electric-field dependence of strain at room temperature, and for the 0.6BT-0.4BZT ceramics, the apparent d33 was measured at 250 pC/N.