Effects of complex additives on toughness and electrical properties of PZT ceramics

This paper investigates the influence of complex additives on the toughness and electrical properties of doped PZT. Properties of doped PZT ceramics were found to be greatly influenced by their microstructures, second phases, domain size, domain configuration and domain wall mobility due to presence of the additives. The presence of dopant appeared to assist densification. Due to the combined effects of the presence of second phases, energy dissipation in the ferroelastic domains, high density as well as changes in grain size, the fracture toughness of the doped PZT was increased. With suitable additives, the present study has demonstrated that dielectric and piezoelectric properties of doped PZT could be improved.