Enhanced electromechanical properties in <00l>-textured (Ba0.85Ca0.15)(Zr0.1Ti0.9)O3 lead-free piezoceramics

<001>-textured (Ba0.85Ca0.15)(Zr0.1Ti0.9)O3 (BCZT) lead-free piezoelectric ceramics were fabricated by templated grain growth using plate-like BaTiO3 as template. The effects of <001> orientation degree on the microstructure and resulting changes in dielectric, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and strain properties were systematically investigated to develop the lead-free piezoelectric materials with an excellent actuating performance. The electromechanical properties were found to increase monotonously with the increase in the degree of texturing and dramatically enhanced for the textured BCZT ceramics in the optimized microstructure compared with randomly-oriented counterparts. Highly textured ceramics showed excellent electromechanical properties of d33=462 pC/N, kp=47%, S=0.187%, and Smax/Emax=621 pm/V at room temperature. These results indicates that the textured ceramics are promising candidates for environmentally friendly actuator devices with high performance.