Low-temperature sintering BCZT-Dy ceramics with low strain hysteresis for actuator application

Ba(Cu 0.5 W 0.5 )O 3 (BCuW)-doped [(Ba 0.85 Ca 0.15 ) 1-x Dy x ](Zr 0.1 Ti 0.9 )O 3 (BCZT-xDy, x = 0.001, 0.03) ceramics were prepared by conventional ceramic processing via low-temperature sintering technique. Rather pure perovskite structure and densified morphology with irregular nearly spherical-shape grains are achieved in all ceramics due to liquid-phase sintering. All BCuW-doped BCZT-xDy ceramics present apparent dielectric frequency dispersion and relaxor ferroelectric characteristic due to ion substitution and adding BCuW. The ceramics prepared at optimized sintering temperatures have rather large strain and small strain hysteresis, showing prospect application in piezoelectric high-precision actuators.