Piezoelectric properties of domain engineered barium titanate single crystals with different volume fractions of domain walls

A piezoelectric domain wall model has been developed to analyze the effective piezoelectric properties of domain engineered BaTiO3 (BT) single crystals with different volume fractions of 90 domain walls. The model takes into account the nonuniform deformation in the domain wall region, which can create additional anisotropy to enhanced functional properties of multidomain single crystals. Our theoretical results indicate that a larger volume fraction of domain walls will produce larger effective piezoelectric coefficients. In addition, with the increase in domain wall volume fraction, [011](c) poled BT single crystals will have a much larger piezoelectric property enhancement than [111](c) poled BT single crystals. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3212977]