Longitudinal strain enhancement and bending deformations in piezoceramics

Gobinda Adhikary, Anil Adukkadan, Gudeta Jafo Muleta, Monika, Ram Prakash Singh, Digvijay Narayan Singh, Harvey Luo, Getaw Abebe Tina, Luke Giles, Stefano Checchia, John Daniels and Rajeev Ranjan ()
Additional contact information
Gobinda Adhikary: Indian Institute of Science
Anil Adukkadan: Indian Institute of Science
Gudeta Jafo Muleta: Indian Institute of Science
Monika: Indian Institute of Science
Ram Prakash Singh: Indian Institute of Science
Digvijay Narayan Singh: Indian Institute of Science
Harvey Luo: UNSW Sydney
Getaw Abebe Tina: Indian Institute of Science
Luke Giles: UNSW Sydney
Stefano Checchia: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
John Daniels: UNSW Sydney
Rajeev Ranjan: Indian Institute of Science

Nature, 2025, vol. 637, issue 8045, 333-338

Abstract: Abstract Piezoelectric materials directly convert between electrical and mechanical energies. They are used as transducers in applications such as nano-positioning and ultrasound imaging. Improving the properties of these devices requires piezoelectric materials capable of delivering a large longitudinal strain on the application of an electric field. A large longitudinal strain of more than 1% is generally anticipated in suitably oriented single crystals of specific compositions of ferroelectric materials1. Polycrystalline piezoceramics typically show a longitudinal strain of approximately 0.2–0.4%. We demonstrate that when the thickness of a polycrystalline piezoceramic is reduced to such an extent that a large fraction of the grains are in the triaxial–biaxal crossover regime, the domain-switching fraction increases considerably. If the positive and the negative surfaces of the piezoceramic respond to electric fields symmetrically, as in the classical PbZrxTixO3, a longitudinal strain of approximately 1% can be achieved in a 0.2 mm disc of the morphotropic phase boundary composition (a 300% increase from a thickness of 0.7 mm). We show that oxygen vacancies in piezoceramics cause asymmetrical switching at the positive and negative surfaces, which causes thin piezoceramics to bend. We expect these findings will encourage further engineering of these mechanisms across different piezoelectric material systems, opening new applications for electromechanical actuation.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08292-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:637:y:2025:i:8045:d:10.1038_s41586-024-08292-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08292-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().