Abstract
This paper presents a novel die-pressing technique for the fabrication of 1-3 piezoceramic/polymer composites. Piezoceramic (Ba0.95Pb0.03) (Ti0.99Co0.01)O-3 (BT) powder having particle size similar to 0.4 mu m was synthesized by a solid state reaction method. Key properties of sintered and poled BT samples were epsilon(r)=1100, d(33)=136 pC/N, g(33)=14 x 10(-3) V m/N and tan delta=0.005. The 1-3 connectivity BT/monothane-A70 samples with variable BT contents (11-31 vol%) were fabricated by a die-pressing technique. The dielectric, elastic and resonant characteristics were investigated by using standard equipments. Results revealed that the composites possess moderate dielectric constant epsilon(r) (140-349), higher thickness mode electromechanical coupling coefficient k(t) (44%) and higher figure of merit FOM (1896-7169 fm(2)/N) compared to monolithic BT ceramic. The fabricated composites also possess favorable properties such as lower acoustic impedance Z (8-13 Mrayl) and lower elastic stiffness C-33(D) (36-65 GPa) compared to single phase BT ceramic. These results indicate that BT/monothane-A70 composites have the potential to be used as transducer in various applications. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.