Giant actuation strain nearly 0.6% in a periodically orthogonal poled lead titanate zirconate ceramic via reversible domain switching

The widely used ferroelectric ceramics based actuators always suffer from small output strains (typically similar to 0.1%-0.15%). Non-180 degrees domain switching can generate a large strain in ferroelectrics but it is usually irreversible. In this work, we tailored the domain structures in a soft lead titanate zirconate (PZT) ceramic by periodical orthogonal poling. The non-180 degrees switching in this domain-engineered PZT ceramics turns to be reversible, resulting in a local giant actuation strain of nearly 0.6% under a field of 2 kV/mm at 0.1 Hz. The large interfacial stresses between regions with different poling directions during electric loading/unloading were thought to be responsible for the reversible non-180 degrees domain switching. The switching strain drops quickly with the increasing frequency, and stabilized at about 0.2% at or above 1.0 Hz. The large actuation strain remains quite stable after 10 4 cycles of loading, which is very promising for low-frequency, large-strain actuators. Published by AIP Publishing.