Breakdown and critical field evaluation for porous PZT 95/5 ferroelectric ceramics under shock wave compression

Bounded charges of PZT 95/5 ferroelectric ceramics with polarization can be rapidly released by shock wave loadings to form a high-power electrical energy output, which motivates pulsed power applications of ferroelectric materials. In the present paper, we first investigated experimentally the depoling current and output electric field, as well as the critical electric fields of breakdown for porous PZT 95/5 ceramics in the normal shock-wave-loaded mode by means of a gas-gun facility. By combining the output electric-field profile by shock loading with the breakdown of the quasi-static electric field, we were able to theoretically evaluate the range of the breakdown field for porous ferroelectric ceramics with different porosities under shock wave compression. Although it is a rough bound-field evaluation on breakdown of shocked porous PZT 95/5 ferroelectric ceramics suggested in the present work, it sounds reasonable and the predictions of critical field-bounds on the breakdown show good agreement with the magnitude of the experimental results. The influences of load resistance, porosity and velocity of shock wave on the lower and upper bounds of critical electric field for poled porous PZT 95/5 ceramics during the discharge process were also discussed.