Synergistic enhancement of actuation performance through crystallographic texturing and configuration optimization

Abstract

Piezoelectric actuators must simultaneously achieve large stroke, good linearity, and high precision. Piezoelectric property enhancement plays a critical role in improving actuation performance. In this study, [001]c textured 0.73Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.27PbTiO3-Gd2O3 (PMN-PT-Gd) ceramics with F001=98% were fabricated via the templated grain growth method. The textured ceramics exhibit excellent piezoelectric properties, including d33=1300 pC/N, d31=−417 pC/N, k31=45%, kp=70%, d33*=1460 pm/V, and a low Hs=5.6% under 20 kV/cm. Finite element analysis demonstrated that a square-tube configuration actuator yielded a significant increase in the output displacement, compared with that of the conventional cylindrical-tube structure, along with a more uniform stress distribution and lower energy dissipation. The actuator achieves remarkable performance improvement through the synergistic effect of enhanced piezoelectric properties and configuration optimization. The piezoelectric scanners based on textured PMN-PT-Gd ceramics exhibited an emitted spot displacement range 83.2% larger than that of the PZT-5H based counterparts, and also showed excellent linearity with respect to the driving voltage. These results demonstrate that the textured piezoceramic scanner with a square-tube configuration features strong potential for application in high-precision laser-modulation systems and miniature insertable medical endoscopes.