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5 7 I H I G H L I G H T S 2 0 2 3

PRINCIPAL PUBLICATION AND AUTHORS

Lead zirconate titanate ceramics with aligned crystallite grains, J. Li (a), W. Qu (b), J. Daniels (c), H. Wu (b), L. Liu (d), J. Wu (a), M. Wang (a), S. Checchia (e), S. Yang (a), H. Lei (a), R. Lv (d), Y. Zhang (f), D. Wang (c), X. Li (a), X. Ding (b), J. Sun (b), Z. Xu (a), Y. Chang (d), S. Zhang (g), F. Li (a), Science 380, 87-93 (2023); https:/doi.org/10.1126/science.adf6161 (a) Electronic Materials Research Laboratory (Key Lab of Education Ministry), Xi an Jiaotong University, Xi an (China) (b) State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi an Jiaotong University (China) (c) School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia) (d) Functional Materials and Acousto-Optic Instruments Institute, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin (China) (e) ESRF (f) Instrumental Analysis Center, Xi an Jiaotong University (China) (g) Institute of Superconducting and Electronic Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong (Australia)

(Figure 40a) was obtained from the synchrotron XRD experiments (Figure 40b-d), revealing a volume fraction of around 94% aligned grains and thus a high degree of texturing, consistent with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results. Next, in-situ synchrotron XRD experiments were performed on the textured PZT ceramic under an applied electric field. High-energy X-rays were used in transmission geometry with a large area detector (Figure 40e) to provide simultaneous texture and strain information at multiple orientations within the sample. The in-situ synchrotron XRD results of Figure 40f (002 diffraction peak profiles measured with →q the scattering vector parallel to the electric field

→ E)

and Figure 40g (111 diffraction peak profiles measured with →q oriented 55° to the

→ E) demonstrate that the strain

mechanism in textured PZT is primarily a polarisation rotation process, from the <111> R-phase polar directions

toward the [001] crystallographic direction of textured grains, which accounts for the large electric field-induced strain (Figure 40e).

This study provides a generalised route towards manufacturing textured ceramics that has not yet been possible due to the inevitable chemical reaction between the template and ceramic powder. These high-performance textured ceramics will benefit R&D for more efficient and accurate electromechanical applications, and also offer basic materials for investigating the structure-property relationship of the PZT.

Fig. 40: a) Cross-sectional SEM image of a PZT textured ceramic. b) The {002} pole figure obtained from the synchrotron XRD experiment. c-d) The {002} peak intensity as a function of sample orientation space. e) Schematic of the experimental setup, showing a high-energy X-ray beam transmitting the sample and diffracting to a large-area detector. f) (002) diffraction peak profiles based on

synchrotron XRD measurements with →q || → E; (g) (111) diffraction peak profiles with →q oriented 55° to the

→ E direction.