Fabrication of Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics by (Reactive) Templated Grain Growth

The controlled development of texture in polycrystalline materials is a topic of recent interest in ceramic processing, since it allows improved tailoring of piezoelectric properties. One promising route for controlled texture development is templated grain growth (TGG). The TGG process is dependent on the formation of oriented particles by in situ reaction precursor particles with aligned shape anisotropy templates. It has been shown that ferroelectric/piezoelectric ceramics with a high degree of texture along the polar direction exhibit a good performance. However, how to get the excellent performance with high texture, how to synthesize the plate like template suitable for the ceramics, many issues remain to be overcome for these texture ceramics fabricated by TGG. This article reviews the current literature and patent base of TGG technique of Bismuth Sodium Titanate Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 (abbreviated as BNT) based ceramic materials which is one group of promising lead free material to replace the widely used lead based perovskite materials.