Ferroelectric Domain Wall Engineering Enables Thermal Modulation in PMN-PT Single Crystals.

Acting like thermal resistances, ferroelectric domain walls can be manipulated to realize dynamic modulation of thermal conductivity (k), which is essential for developing novel phononic circuits. Despite the interest, little attention has been paid to achieving room-temperature thermal modulation in bulk materials due to challenges in obtaining a high thermal conductivity switching ratio (khigh /klow ), particularly in commercially viable materials. Here, room-temperature thermal modulation in 2.5 mm-thick Pb(Mg1/3 Nb2/3 )O3 -xPbTiO3 (PMN-xPT) single crystals is demonstrated. With the use of advanced poling conditions, assisted by the systematic study on composition and orientation dependence of PMN-xPT, a range of thermal conductivity switching ratios with a maximum of ≈1.27 is observed. Simultaneous measurements of piezoelectric coefficient (d33 ) to characterize the poling state, domain wall density using polarized light microscopy (PLM), and birefringence change using quantitative PLM reveal that compared to the unpoled state, the domain wall density at intermediate poling states (0< d33

Enhanced Properties of 3-MHz Sliver-Mode Vibrators for Cardiac Probes With Alternating Current Poling for Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 Single Crystals.

We investigated the effects of alternating current poling (ACP) on the piezoelectric and dielectric properties of 3-MHz sliver mode (L13 mm × W0.10-0.25 mm × T0.48 mm) vibrators fashioned from Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.30PbTiO3 (PMN-0.30PT) single crystal (SC) plate manufactured using the continuous-feeding Bridgman (CF-BM) method for cardiac probes. The ACP SC plate (L13 mm × W24 mm × T0.48 mm) exhibited ultrahigh dielectric permittivity ( εT33/ε0 ) and piezoelectric coefficient ( d33 ) of 9690 and 2920 pC/N, respectively. After array dicing, the SC slivers with widths of 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, and 0.25 mm were obtained, and their average εT33/ε0 values decreased from the SC plate εT33/ε0 by 45% (5330), 29% (6880), 19% (7840), and 15% (8240), respectively, possibly because of heat and mechanical damage during the dicing. A combination of the ACP and a postdicing direct current poling (ACP-DCP) recovered their εT33/ε0 values to 6050, 7080, 8140, and 8540, respectively. The sliver mode electromechanical coupling factors ( k'33 ) were confirmed to exceed 93% after the ACP-DCP process, which were more than 4% higher than those of DCP-DCP SC slivers. The measured impedance spectra indicated that the SC slivers with 0.10-0.20 mm in width showed no spurious mode vibration near the fundamental k'33 mode. We conclude that the ACP-DCP SC slivers maintained more enhanced piezoelectric and dielectric properties than the DCP-DCP samples. These results will have important implications for the commercial application of ACP technology to medical imaging ultrasound probes.

A Review on Alternating Current Poling for Perovskite Relaxor-PbTiO3 Single Crystals.

With the great success on verifying its effectiveness on relaxor-PbTiO3 (PT) single crystals (SCs), alternating current poling (ACP) has been taking a center as a new domain engineering method in the last few years. Compared with the conventional direct current poling (DCP), ACP enables enhanced piezoelectric and dielectric properties. In this article, research progress in ACP and perspectives are introduced. Initially, optimized conditions of ACP for relaxor-PT SCs and unsolved issues on polycrystalline ceramics and spurious modes are reviewed. Second, the ferroelectric domain size dependence of piezoelectricity associated with ACP is discussed. We hypothesize that a tradeoff between domain and domain wall contributions exists for high piezoelectricity, suggesting an optimum 109° domain wall size, which is presumably dependent on compositions, crystallographic symmetries, and domain configurations. Finally, crystals synthesized by a solid-state crystal growth (SSCG) method are briefly introduced due to their unprecedented piezoelectricity obtained by ACP ( d33  âˆ¼ 5500 pC/N). We hope that this work helps to grasp the current status of ACP and to guide future tasks to be studied.

A Review of Lead Perovskite Piezoelectric Single Crystals and Their Medical Transducers Application.

Piezoelectric materials have been developed since early 1900s and many research had been conducted on the composition and process to obtain higher piezoelectric constants ( d33 ). Within composition research, lead perovskite relaxor piezoelectric single crystals (SCs) of Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-lead titanate PbTiO3 type have been actively studied since 1990s because of their outstanding pC/N compared with those of the conventional Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 ceramics. A major driving force of these SC research has been promoted by mass production of ultrasound transducers and array probes for medical diagnostic systems since early 2000s. However, higher d33 material and process research for these ultrasound devices are almost saturated. In this review article, we present a brief overview of the history, current situation, and future perspective of piezoelectric SCs. The authors believe that the main research in the next century is high d33 SCs with a high composition uniformity and low-energy SC growth methods, such as solid-state SC growth, low-loss SC transducer manufacturing technique, and improved poling process. This is a big technical challenge for all the scientists; however, the relatively large market of medical ultrasound has been expanded year by year, and we hope that the community is motivated to solve such technical problems in the near future.