Alternating current poling on sliver-mode rhombohedral Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 single crystals

Sliver-mode 0.73Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.27PbTiO(3) single crystals were poled by the alternating current electric field (ACP) along the [001] direction for low-frequency transducer applications. Under ACP with optimized conditions (2.89 kV(rms), 0.1 Hz, 10 cycles), the free dielectric constant (epsilon(T)(33)/epsilon(0)) was enhanced from 5300 to 7220 and piezoelectric coefficient (d(33)) was improved from 1410 to 1920 pC/N, both are about 36% higher than those under traditional direct current poling. The piezoresponse force microscopy observation and phase-field simulation show the similar domain morphologies evolution. During the ACP process, the domain morphology first changes from '4R' to '2R' configuration, and then the length of the 109 degrees domain wall keeps increasing, which leads to a longer range of ordering and a stable lamellar domain structure in the end. The correlation between the domain morphology and the coercive field is also found in both the experiment and simulation. These findings on the effect and mechanism of ACP will help develop advanced low-frequency single crystal transducer arrays. (C)21 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Poling silver-mode single crystals in an alternating current electric field significantly enhances their dielectric constant and piezoelectric coefficient, while also leading to domain morphology evolution.