Improved stability for piezoelectric crystals grown in the lead indium niobate-lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate system

Higher coercive fields (E-C) and depoling temperatures (T-R/T) were obtained for crystals in the Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O-3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-PbTiO3 (PIN-PMN-PT) ternary system. Data are given for a crystal boule with starting composition 0.24PIN-0.44PMN-0.32PT, and with chemical distributions along the growth direction. The dielectric, piezoelectric, and elastic properties were determined. Similar to binary PMN-PT, ternary PIN-PMN-PT crystals have outstanding piezoelectric properties (e.g., d(33)similar to 900-1900 pm/V, k(33)similar to 0.83-0.92). In addition, PIN stabilizes piezoelectric performance by doubling E-C (similar to 6 kV/cm) and increasing T-R/T by similar to 20 degrees C. These improvements are advantageous for acoustic transducers used in high-drive applications. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.