Tailoring the Piezoelectric and Photoluminescence Properties of Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3-K0.5Bi0.5TiO3-BaTiO3-Based Multifunctional Ceramics with Sm Doping

Electroceramics with good piezoelectric and photoluminescence properties are a desirable multifunctional material in the age of intelligence. In this work, Sm3+-doped 0.90 (Na0.5Bi0.5−x/0.90Smx/0.90)TiO3-0.05K0.5Bi0.5TiO3-0.05BaTiO3 (x = 0.00–0.01) piezoelectric ceramics were successfully synthesized by the conventional solid-state reaction method. The microstructure, piezoelectric and photoluminescence properties of the ceramics were studied. It was found that Sm3+ has a great effect on depolarization temperature, which is always ignored in (Na0.5, Bi0.5) TiO3-based ceramics. Our results clearly show that a small addition of Sm3+ can reduce the grain size and depolarization temperature simultaneously, contributing to a significant enhancement in a piezoelectric coefficient d33 from 133 pC/N to 193 pC/N. Besides, the ceramics emit strong orange-red light under 480 nm light excitation. This work thus provides insight into the preparation of multifunctional lead-free NBT-BT piezoelectric ceramics.