Fabrication and electrical properties of 0.94Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3–0.06BaTiO3 textured ceramics by RTGG method using micrometer sized BaTiO3 plate-like templates

Two-step molten salt driven micrometer-scaled tabular (1 0 0) BaTiO3 (BT) template seeds were used for the first time to make 〈1 0 0〉 textured 0.94Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3–0.06BaTiO3 (NBT–BT) piezoelectric ceramics. The use of platelet Bi4Ti3O12 powders instead of Bi2O3 and TiO2 as raw chemicals would not only benefit to the alignment of BT templates during tape casting, but also avoid the dissolution of BT seeds in liquid Bi2O3 during sintering. The results also proved that a pre-reaction procedure at a low temperature is unnecessary during reactive templated grain growth owing to the structure similarity between BT seeds and target compound. Well-textured NBT–BT lead-free piezoelectric ceramics (f ∼ 91%) show excellent dielectric and piezoelectric properties of dielectric constant ɛr ∼ 1300 and piezoelectric charge constant d33 = 260 pC/N.

► The (1 0 0) oriented micrometer scaled tabular BT templates were applied to make textured NBT–BT ceramics.
► The use of platelike Bi4Ti3O12 was used as raw materials instead of single Bi2O3.
► A high orientation (f ∼ 91%) and good piezoelectric coefficient (d33 = 260 pC/N) were obtained.