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Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are one of the most important materials in gas turbine to protect the high temperature components. RETa3O9 compounds have a defect-perovskite structure, indicating that they have low thermal conductivity, which is the critical property of TBCs. Herein, dense RETa3O9 bulk ceramics were fabricated via solid-state reaction. The crystal structure was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman Spectroscope. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the microstructure. The thermal physics properties of RETa3O9 were studied systematically, including specific heat, thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, thermal expansion coefficients and high-temperature phase stability. The thermal conductivities of RETa3O9 are very low (1.33-2.37 W/m.K, 373-1073 K), which are much lower than YSZ and La2Zr2O7; and the thermal expansion coefficients range from 4.0×10-6 K−1 to 10.2×10-6 K−1 (1273 K), which is close to La2Zr2O7 and YSZ. According to the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) curve there is not phase transition at the test temperature. Due to the high melting point and excellent high-temperature phase stability with these oxides, RETa3O9 ceramics were promising candidate materials for TBCs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Piezoelectric actuators are typically preloaded with a modest mechanical compressive stress during actuation to reduce cracking and allow for operation in the dynamic range. In addition, actuators are required to carry out mechanical work during operation, resulting in a nonlinear relationship between stress and actuation voltage. In fact, mechanical loading can significantly impact the electromechanical performance of lead-free piezoelectrics. Herein, we report the dependence of electromechanical properties of CaZrO3 modified (K,Na)NbO3-based lead-free piezoceramics on uniaxial compressive stress, comparing to their lead-based counterparts. It is demonstrated that increased non-180° domain switching enhances the strain output at a moderate stress of approximately -50 MPa from room temperature to 150°C. Larger uniaxial stress, however, is found to suppress ferroelectric domain switching, resulting in the continuous strain and polarization decrease.

This work investigated the effect of MnO2 addition on the phase structure, microstructure, and electrical properties of AgSbO3-modified (Li,K,Na)(Nb,Ta)O3 (abbreviated as LKNNT-AS) lead-free piezoelectric ceramics with an optimized composition endowed with a state of two-phase coexistence. A small amount (0.1 wt%) of MnO2 can significantly further enhance the piezoelectric property of LKNNT-AS ceramics, whose piezoelectric constant d33 and converse piezoelectric coefficient d33* as well as planar electromechanical coupling factor kp reach 363 pC/N, 543 pm/V, and 0.49, respectively. The temperature stability of piezoelectricity in MnO2-modified LKNNT-AS samples also improved, which is associated with the more uniform and better thermally stable ferroelectric domains that were revealed by piezoresponse force microscopy.

BiCuSeO is a promising thermoelectric material but needs a complicated synthesis process. In this work, fine-grained BiCuSeO samples with high phase purity were synthesized by a combination of mechanical alloying (MA) and spark plasma sintering (SPS). It is found that BiCuSeO compounds can be formed by the reaction between BiSe and CuO, after BiSe appeared firstly when using Bi, Se, and CuO as raw materials during MA process. The electrical conductivity of the corresponding bulk attains a modest enhancement due to the significantly increased carrier concentration although the carrier mobility was reduced compared with the sample prepared by classical solid-state reaction. The total thermal conductivity is below 0.7 W/mK in the whole measured temperature range, which is attributable to the increased defects and gain boundaries. As a result, a relatively high ZT value of 0.50 was obtained for the pristine BiCuSeO sample. In addition, when Bi was replaced by Ca element, the electrical transport property of the samples was improved, resulting in an enhancement of ZT in the whole measured temperature range.

The temperature dependence of piezoelectric properties (direct piezoelectric coefficient d33, converse piezoelectric coefficient d33(E = 0), strain S and electromechanical coupling coefficient kp) for two niobate-based lead-free piezoceramics have been contrasted. 0.92(Na0.5K0.5)NbO3–0.02(Bi1/2Li1/2)TiO3–0.06BaZrO3 (6BZ/2BLT/92NKN) has a morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) between rhombohedral and tetragonal at room temperature and 0.92(Na0.5K0.5)NbO3–0.03(Bi1/2Li1/2)TiO3–0.05BaZrO3 (5BZ/3BLT/92NKN) features an MPB engineered to be located below room temperature. At 30°C, d33, d33(E = 0), S (at 2 kV/mm), and kp are 252 pC/N, 230 pm/V, 0.069%, 0.51 for 5BZ/3BLT/92NKN; and 348 pC/N, 380 pm/V, 0.106%, 0.57 for 6BZ/2BLT/92NKN, respectively. With increasing temperature, the piezoelectric properties decrease. At 200°C, d33, d33(E = 0), S (at 2 kV/mm), and kp are 170 pC/N, 160 pm/V, 0.059%, 0.36 for 5BZ/3BLT/92NKN; and 181 pC/N, 190 pm/V, 0.061%, 0.39 for 6BZ/2BLT/92NKN. It is found that the electromechanical coupling coefficient has a better temperature stability than the piezoelectric coefficient in the studied system due to a large temperature-dependent compliance change. The results demonstrate that engineering an MPB is highly effective in tailoring temperature stability of piezoceramics.

The phase transition temperatures of CaZrO3-doped (Na0.49K0.49Li0.02)(Nb0.8Ta0.2)O-3 lead-free piezoelectrics (LKNNT-CZ5) have been studied with X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering. It is found that LKNNT-CZ5 ceramics and powders with the same crystallite size (similar to 2-5m) exhibit distinctly different phase transition behaviors versus temperature. The ceramic bulk changes its orthorhombic phase to tetragonal structure abruptly after being pulverized to powders at room temperature(RT), and follows a phase transition sequence with increasing temperature: orthorhombic (RT-65 degrees C), orthorhombic and tetragonal (65 degrees C-105 degrees C), and tetragonal phase (105 degrees C to similar to 220 degrees C). Contrastively, the powders hold a tetragonal structure without any phase transition within the whole temperature region (RT-220 degrees C). These differences might be induced by the existing internal stress or residual strain, which could be released during the grinding process.

The growing environmental concerns have been pushing the development of viable green alternatives for lead-based piezoceramics to be one of the priorities in functional ceramic materials. A polymorphic phase transition has been utilized to enhance piezoelectric properties of lead-free (K, Na)NbO3based materials, accepting the drawbacks of high temperature and cycling instabilities. Here, we present that CaZrO3-modified (K, Na)NbO3 piezoceramics not only possess excellent performance at ambient conditions benefiting from nanodomain engineering, but also exhibit superior stability against temperature fluctuation and electrical fatigue cycling. It was found that the piezoelectric coefficient d33 is temperature independent under 4 kV/mm, which can be attributed to enhanced thermal stability of electric field engineered domain configuration; whereas the electric field induced strain exhibits excellent fatigue resistance up to 10 7 sesquipolar cycles. These findings render the current material an unprecedented opportunity for actuator applications demanding improved thermal and cycling reliabilities.

Lead-free (K,Na)NbO3 (KNN) piezoelectric films were fabricated on Nb:SrTiO3 substrates by sol–gel process, and the influence of thermal processing details on the microstructure and ferroelectric property was investigated. Experimental results confirmed the different appearance of polycrystalline growth and epitaxial growth modes during the crystallization of KNN thin films. These two growth modes occurred under different thermal conditions within the narrow pyrolysis temperature scope ranging from 400°C to 500°C, respectively. By considering these findings, an optimizing combination between pyrolysis and annealing procedure was thought to be crucially important to obtain high-performance KNN films with excellent crystallization state.

Environment-friendly lead-free piezoelectric ceramics have been studied extensively in the past decade with great progress particularly in systems based on a niobate perovskite compound formulated as (K, Na)NbO3 (abbreviated as KNN). A comprehensive review on the latest development of KNN-based piezoelectric ceramics is presented in this article, including the phase structure, property enhancement approaches, and sintering processes as well as the status of some promising applications. The phase structure of KNN was reexamined and associated with the effect of chemical modification on its tetragonal-to-orthorhombic transition. Then, a special focus is placed on the temperature dependence of piezoelectric properties of KNN-based ceramics, followed by reviewing the recent approaches devoted to the temperature-stability enhancement. The processing fundamentals related to the sintering of KNN-based ceramics are also presented with an emphasis on compositional and microstructural control. Finally, this review introduces several industrial attempts of traditional piezoceramic products using KNN-based ceramics and the studies on some promising application in authors' laboratory.