Comprehensive analysis of Mn:PIN-PMN-PT single crystals for Class IV flextensional transducer

As a crucial part of flextensional transducer (FT), the piezoelectric stack has an essential influence on the transducer. However, up to date, there are no literatures on considering the loss characteristics of the piezoelectric materials in the design of FT. Manganese-modified PIN-PMN-PT (Mn:PIN-PMN-PT) single crystals have greatly improved Qm values compared with the binary and ternary single crystals. In this paper, Class IV FTs based on Mn:PIN-42%PMN-32%PT and Mn:PIN-47%PMN-29%PT crystals were analyzed comprehensively on the heat losses, as well as transmitting voltage response (TVR), source level (SL), acoustic pressure (AP) and admittance. Compared with PIN-47%PMN-29%PT, PMN-28%PT and PZT4, the Mn:PIN-42%PMN-32%PT FT has a decrease of heat loss by 47.9%, 79.5% and 93.6%, respectively, under the same strain of 5 × 10−5. The results indicated that the Mn:PIN-PMN-PT FT possesses simultaneously the less heat loss and lower resonant frequency, the higher AP, TVR, SL and effective electromechanical coupling coefficient. This research provides a guide for the design of FT and illuminates the immense potential of Mn:PIN-PMN-PT single crystals in making low heat generation, low frequency and high power FT.