Piezoelectric activities and domain patterns of orthorhombic Ba(Zr,Ti)O3 ceramics

• Piezoelectric activities and domain patterns of BZT ceramics were investigated.
• All the BZT ceramics showed nearly the same domain width.
• Effective inertia mass of domain walls greatly impacts piezoelectric activities.

Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 (0.025 ≤ x ≤ 0.065) ceramics were prepared by conventional solid-state reaction method. Crystalline structures were analyzed by X-ray diffraction. It was shown that all the Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 (0.025 ≤ x ≤ 0.065) ceramics were of orthorhombic phase at room temperature. Piezoelectric activities and domain patterns were investigated and compared with those of BaTiO3 ceramic. All the Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 ceramics showed nearly the same d33 values of about 265 pC/N and the same domain width of about 220 nm. By comparing the grain sizes and domain width of the Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 ceramics with those of BaTiO3 ceramic, it is speculated that the variation of domain width with grain sizes in orthorhombic Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 ceramics may be different with that in tetragonal BaTiO3 ceramic. Besides domain width, the effective inertia mass of domain wall is also considered to be a very important factor that impacts the piezoelectric activities of the Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3 ceramics.