Study on the performance of Lead zirconate titanate piezoelectric coating prepared by vacuum cold spraying

Abstract

By utilizing the force-electric conversion capabilities of piezoelectric materials, piezoelectric ceramic coatings are intended to monitor the state of component damage. In this study, lead zirconate titanate [Pb(Zr, Ti)O3, PZT] piezoelectric ceramic coatings were prepared on the SUS304 substrate by vacuum cold spraying (VCS). The phase structure, microstructure, and electrical properties of the PZT coating were analyzed. According to the findings, the PZT coating has a typical tetragonal perovskite structure, and the Xi photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) findings show that the room-temperature deposition characteristics of VCS techniques do not affect the elemental valence state of PZT materials, making it a non-destructive way to create the coating. The surface of the PZT coating is uniform and smooth, and the surface roughness Ra is about 195 nm. The PZT coating has a microhardness of around 1,510 Hv and an elastic modulus of about 73.9 GPa. Meanwhile, the piezoelectric coefficient d33 of the PZT coating was about 46 pC/N. The maximum saturation polarization of the PZT coating was 16.2 μC/cm2, the remnant polarization was 3.1 μC/cm2, and the coercive field was 59.3 kV/cm, which showed some ferroelectricity. The dielectric constant/dielectric loss of the PZT coating was about 425/0.35. The Curie temperature of PZT coating is 392.6 °C, which improves the application temperature range of PZT coating. This demonstrates that the PZT coatings created by VCS have certain electrical capabilities, offering a novel way to create and enhance the piezoelectric ceramic coating system for later-stage part monitoring.