Fabrication and electrical properties of textured Sr0.53Ba0.47Nb2O6 ceramics by templated grain growth

Textured Sr0.53Ba0.47Nb2O6 ceramics with a relative density of >95% were fabricated using templated grain growth (TGG), Acicular KSr2Nb5O15 template particles synthesized via a molten salt process were aligned by tape casting in a mixture of solid-state-synthesized SrNb2O6 and BaNb2O6 powders. The resulting ceramics possessed strong fiber texture along the polar axis ([001]) of the strontium barium niobate. Samples with 15.4 wt% templates attained a textured fraction of 0.82 after sintering at a temperature of 1450 degrees C for 4 h. These materials showed peak dielectric constants of 7550 at 1 kHz, remanent polarizations of 13.2 mu C/cm(2), saturation polarizations of 21 mu C/cm(2) (60%-85% of the single-crystal value), piezoelectric strain coefficients of 78 pC/N (70%-85% of the single-crystal value), and room-temperature pyroelectric coefficients of 2.9 x 10(-2) mu C-.(cm(2) (.)degrees C)(-1) (52% of the single-crystal value). These results show that TGG is a viable option for accessing single-crystal properties in polycrystalline ceramics.