Methods for improving the properties of piezoelectric all-ceramic composites using low energy consumption manufacturing processes
NELO M. 1, BAI Y. 1, TUOMO S. 1, JUUTI J. 1, JANTUNEN H. 1
1 Microelectronics Research Unit, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, , FINLANDE
Traditionally electroceramic bulks are fabrication at high temperatures. This goes also with the piezoelectrics, which sintering temperatures are commonly over 1000 ºC. The first paper introducing room temperature fabrication methods for ceramic bulky structures was published in 2015, where dielectric Li2MoO4 enabled their realization simply by axial pressing, careful optimisation of the ceramic powder and the postprocessing time. Since then, several other related methods saving energy in the fabrication phase of the samples are introduces. However, the main challenge is always the same – how to reach e.g., the desired electrical and structural properties when only low amount of energy is available during the process. Here the research to the fabricate piezoelectric bulks at low temperatures is discussed showing step by step how their electrical performances can be improved with different all-ceramic “upside-down” composite approaches. In all of these, the piezoelectric material was commercial PZ29 with bi/multimodal particles size to optimize their packing density. Among the other performance parameters, it is shown how e.g., the relative permittivity and d33values increased from 290 and 84 pC/N, respectively, first to 330 and 151 pC/N, and with the further process development to 500 and 180 pC/N. These improvements were achieved with the coating of PZT particles, utilization of non-water-soluble organometallic precursor, slight increase of the process temperature, and introduction of impregnation method. As a conclusion, the results show through these examples what methods can be used when the fabrication process of electroceramic composites is expected to use low amount of energy. Also, other options for further improvements and thus available opportunities will be discussed