Eur. Phys. J. B (2016) 89: 108
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2016-60390-6

Regular Article

A comparison of different powder compaction processes adopted for synthesis of lead-free piezoelectric ceramics^*

Ceramics and Composites Group, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, 500058 Hyderabad, India

^a e-mail: mahesh.mlv@gmail.com

Received: 15 May 2015
Received in final form: 21 July 2015
Published online: 20 April 2016

Abstract

Barium zirconium titanate, Ba(Zr_0.15Ti_0.85)O₃ nano-crystalline powders were synthesized using high energy ball milling. The calcined powders were compacted adopting two different approaches viz. the conventional uniaxial pressing and cold-isostatic pressing (CIP) and the compacts were sintered at 1350 °C. A single phase perovskite structure was observed in both cases. BZT ceramics compacted using CIP technique exhibited enhanced dielectric and ferroelectric properties compared to ceramics compacted by uniaxial pressing. The polarization current peaks have been used in this paper as an experimental evidence to prove the existence of ferroelectricity in the BZT ceramics under study. The peak polarization current was found to be ~700% higher in case of cold iso-statically compacted ceramics. Similarly electric field induces strain showed a maximum strain (S_max) of 0.08% at an electric field of 28 kV/cm. The dielectric and ferroelectric properties observed are comparable to single crystals of the same material.