Effect of Porosity on Functional Properties of Lead-Free Piezoelectric BaZr0.15Ti0.85O3 Porous Ceramics
Lavinia Curecheriu, Vlad Alexandru Lukacs, Leontin Pădurariu, George Stoian, Cristina Elena Ciomaga
Abstract
The present paper reports the dependence of dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties on the porosity level in BaZr0.15Ti0.85O3 ceramics with porosity from 5% to 21%. Microporosity with 0–3 connectivity has been produced using PMMA microspheres as a sacrificial template. The functional properties (dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric effect) are mostly affected by the “dilution effect”: permittivity decreases by 40% when porosity increases by 21%, and Pmax decreases from 13 to 5 µC/cm2 while the Prem is in the range of (2–8) µC/cm2. However, the reduction of the zero-field permittivity and hysteretic behaviour of ε(E) while the tunability level is still high makes from porous ceramics interesting materials for tunability application.