Technology Summary

The subject invention covers a novel, ternary polycrystalline composition of matter, which demonstrates improvements in dielectric and piezoelectric properties, electromechanical coupling and thermal stability over existing PZT-based ceramics. The invention possesses similar Curie temperature ranges with higher dielectric and piezoelectric properties than those of commercially available PZT and PMNT ceramics. The invention’s materials have also been engineered to have higher Curie temperatures with comparable dielectric and piezoelectric properties to existing commercial piezoceramics. Changing the material composition allows for tailoring the materials to exhibit relaxor-like characteristics, including broadened dielectric peaks and dispersive dielectric behavior with respect to frequency. The process to make the invention’s compositions rely on a two-step precursor method.