Enhanced ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of (Bi1-xLax)FeO3-BaTiO3 ceramics near Morphotropic phase boundary

0.7Bi1-xLaxFeO3–0.3BaTiO3 (abbreviated as BLxF-0.3BT at 0.00 ≤ x ≤ 0.05) system was designed to explore the relationship between the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) separating with rhombohedral (R) phase and pseudocubic (PC) one, and piezoelectric property. X-ray diffraction and Rietveld refinement results of XRD data reveal that the phase structure of samples evolved from R-PC two-phase coexistence at 0.00 ≤ x ≤ 0.03 to PC-symmetry at x = 0.05. Due to coexisting R-PC two phases near MPB region and the improvement of polarization property, excellent d33 = 170 pC/N and kp = 28.74% were achieved in BLxF-0.3BT system at x = 0.01. This research revealed the potential of BLxF-0.3BT system as promising lead-free piezoelectric ceramics with relatively high Curie temperature TC = 477 °C.