Growth and electrical properties of Na1/2Bi1/2TiO3-BaTiO3 lead-free single crystal with morphotropic phase boundary composition

In present work, lead-free single crystal 0.94Na(1/2)Bi(1/2)TiO(3)-0.06BaTiO(3) (NBBT94/6) with dimension of Phi 40 mm x 10 mm was grown by a precisely controlled top seeded solution growth method. The crystal structure measurement result indicates that the NBBT94/6 single crystal exhibits the feature of rhombohedral-tetragonal phase coexistence at room temperature. The crystallographic orientation dependence of electrical properties for NBBT94/6 single crystal was investigated in detail. The remnant polarizations (P-r) of < 001 >, < 001 >, and < 111 > oriented crystals are 16.02 mu C/cm(2), 22.16 mu C/cm(2), and 27.23 mu C/cm(2), respectively. The corresponding coercive fields (E-c) are 24.89, 20.72, and 15.36 kV/cm. Moreover, a double hysteresis loop appears at the depolarization temperature. High piezoelectric properties d(33) of 360 pC/N and k(t) of 62% were obtained in the < 001 > oriented crystals due to the engineered domain configuration which make them promising candidates for environmental friendly solid-state actuator applications. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3516259]