New Bismuth Sodium Titanate Based Ceramics and Their Applications

Ferroelectric materials are widely investigated due to their excellent properties and versatile applications. At present, the dominant materials are lead-containing materials, such as Pb (Zr,Ti)O3 solid solutions. However, the use of lead gives rise to environmental concerns, which is the driving force for the development of alternative lead-free ferroelectric materials. (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3-based ceramics are considered to be one of the most promising lead-free materials to replace lead-containing ferroelectric ceramics due to their excellent ferroelectric properties, relaxation characteristics, and high Curie point. After decades of efforts, great progress has been made in the phase structure characterization and properties improvement of BNT based ceramics. However, most of the studies on BNT system mainly focuses on its piezoelectric properties and application of piezoelectric sensors and strain actuators, little attention is paid to its ferroelectric properties and related applications. In this chapter, new BNT-based ceramics via composition modification and special focuses on the ferroelectric properties, phase transition behaviors under external fields and related applications, such as application in energy storage, pulsed power supply and pyroelectric detection were proposed.