Chiang Mai Journal of Science

In this study, in order to develop low-temperature-sintering ceramics for a multilayer piezoelectric transformer application, we explored CuO and Bi2O3 as sintering aids Pb(Zr,Ti)O3-Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-Pb(Ni_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃- (PZT-PZN-PNN) based ceramics with excellent piezoelectric and dielectric properties such as d₃₃ ~ 347 pC/N, kp ~ 0.57, and Qm ~ 1469.The addition of  CuO decreased the sintering temperature through the formation of  a liquid phase. However, the piezoelectric properties of the CuO-added ceramics sintered below 900^oC were lower than the desired values. The additional Bi₂O₃ resulted in a  significant improvement  in the piezoelectric properties. At the sintering temperature of  900oC, the electromechanical coupling factor (k_p), piezoelectric constant (d₃₃), mechanical quality factor(Q_m) of  PZT-PZN-PNN composition ceramics with addition of  0.5 wt% CuO and 0.5 wt% Bi₂O₃ showed the optimal value of  0.56, 350 pC/N, and 1042, respectively. These values indicated that the newly developed composition may be suitable for multilayer piezoelectric transformer application.