Coexistence of three ferroelectric phases and enhanced piezoelectric properties in BaTiO3 CaHfO3 lead-free ceramics

Perovskite ferroelectrics possess the fascinating piezoelectric properties near a morphotropic phase boundary, attributing to a low energy barrier that the results in structural instability and easy polarization rotation. In this work, a new lead-free system of (1-x)BaTiO3-xCaHfO(3) was designed, and characterized by a coexistence of ferroelectric rhombohedral-orthorhombic-tetragonal (R-O-T) phases. With the increase amount of CaHfO3 (x), a stable coexistence region of three ferroelectric phases (R-O-T) exists at 0.06 <= x <= 0.08. Both large piezoelectric coefficient (d(33) similar to 400 pC/N), inverse piezoelectric coefficient (d(33)* similar to 547 pm/V) and planar electromechanical coupling factor (k(p) similar to 58.2%) can be achieved for the composition with x = 0.08 near the coexistence of three ferroelectric phases. Our results show that the materials with the composition located at a region where the three ferroelectric R-O-T phases coexist would have the lowest energy barrier and thus greatly promote the polarization rotation, resulting in a strong piezoelectric response.