Significantly improved piezoelectric performance of PZT-PMnN ceramics prepared by spark plasma sintering.

A high-performance piezoelectric material, 0.95Pb(Zr 0.52 Ti 0.48 )O 3 -0.05Pb(Mn 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 (PZT-PMnN) ceramic, was prepared by using a spark plasma sintering (SPS) method. By systematically comparing the electrical properties, the spark-plasma-sintered sample was demonstrated to be superior to a conventionally sintered sample. With respect to conventionally sintered ceramic, the d 33 of spark-plasma-sintered ceramic increases from 323 pC/N to 412 pC/N, and the increases from 318 pm V -1 to 553 pm V -1 . More importantly, the mechanical quality factor ( Q m ) reaches 583, which is three times higher than the conventionally sintered sample ( Q m ∼ 182). Furthermore, the SPS method was found to be capable of promoting other electrical properties simultaneously. Therefore, the SPS method is proposed to be an effective processing method to fabricate PZT-PMnN ceramics of higher performance.