Technological developments of piezoelectric ceramics

Piezoelectric ceramics are widely used in electronic devices such as communication devices, oscillators, various actuators and sensors and so on. In the future IoT (Internet of Things) society, huge number of electric devices will be connected each other, and the piezoelectric devices will increase their importance. However requirements to piezoelectric materials has become more difficult than before. Electronic devices should be placed in more harsh conditions such as high temperatures and they should have enough reliabilities against the harsh conditions. Moreover they should be harmonized with natural environment. Harmful substances should be removed from the materials used in electronic devices. Structural designs of piezoelectric ceramics are very important for improvements of their properties which is difficult to improve by ordinary compositional modifications. Developments of Lead-free piezoelectric ceramic materials are also important as environment-benign technologies. In this review, some examples of the structure-derived functionalities and lead-free piezoelectric R&D are introduced and their future perspectives are described. © 2020 Japan Society of Powder and Powder Metallurgy.