Effects of CuO addition on the sinterability and electric properties in PbNb2O6-based ceramics

PbNb₂O₆ (PN)-based ceramics with tungsten bronze structure are promising piezoelectric materials in high-temperature devices such as piezoelectric vibration transducers. However, the PN-based ceramics usually exhibit a low bulk density, which greatly limits their practical applications. In this work, CuO was used as the sintering aid to form a liquid-phase bridge, leading to an obvious increase of the bulk density of PN-based ceramics by 11% (from 5.25 to 5.85 g cm^?3) and the improvement of the piezoelectric constant (d₃₃) (from 168 to 190 pC/N) and the Curie temperature (T_C) from 367 to 395 °C. The positive influence of CuO on densification has been proved by SEM and fracture toughness. The XRD patterns confirmed that there was no secondary phase introduced by CuO addition. The Raman spectra revealed that part of Cu²⁺ ions has probably diffused into host lattice of the PN and preferred to occupy on A-sites. These results not only demonstrate the high potential of the CuO added PN-based ceramics for high-temperature piezoelectric applications, but also reveal the corresponding structure-properties relationship as well as provide a way to improve the sinterability, d₃₃, and T_C simultaneously.