Hailing Sun

Room-Temperature Large and Reversible Modulation of Photoluminescence by in Situ Electric Field in Ergodic Relaxor Ferroelectrics

Ferroelectric oxides with luminescent ions hold great promise in future optoelectronic devices because of their unique photoluminescence and inherent ferroelectric properties. Intriguingly, the photoluminescence performance of ferroelectric ceramics could be modulated by an external electric field. However, researchers face a current challenge of the diminutive extent and degree of reversibility of the field-driven modification that hinder their use in room-temperature practical applications. Within the scope of current contribution in rare-earth-doped bismuth sodium titanate relaxors, the most important information to be noted is the shifting of the depolarization temperature toward room temperature and the resulting considerable enhancement in ergodicity, as evidenced by the dielectric properties, polarization, and strain hysteresis, as well as the in situ Raman/X-ray diffraction studies. After the introduction of 1 mol % Eu, the induced composition and charge disorders disrupt the original long-range ferroelectric macrodomains into randomly dynamic and weakly correlated polar nanoregions, which facilitates a reversible transformation between polar nanoregions and unstable ferroelectric state under an electric field, engendering a large strain. By virtue of this, both the extent and degree of reversibility of photoluminescence modulation are enhanced (∼60%) considerably, and room-temperature in situ tunable photoluminescence response is then achieved under electric field. These should be helpful for the realization of regulating the physical couplings (photoluminescent-ferroelectrics) in multifunctional inorganic ferroelectrics with a high ergodic state by reversibly tuning the structural symmetry.

High power density NaNbO3-LiTaO3 lead-free piezoelectric transformer in radial vibration modes

In the present work, the sintering temperature was able to substantially influence the microstructure and electrical properties of the lead-free ceramic 0.88NaNbO3–0.12LiTaO3. This composition without any acceptor doping presents a high mechanical quality factor, Qm, value of 1469 and a high Curie temperature of 305 °C by optimizing the sintering temperature at 1330 °C. We applied this material to make a device of disk-shaped piezoelectric transformers with a ring–dot structure and further focused on investigating the characteristics of the piezoelectric transformers. With matching load, a maximum efficiency of 92% occurs in the fundamental mode, and the maximum voltage gains are 5.5 and 3.7 for the fundamental and third radial vibration modes, respectively. The experimental results show a maximum output power of 10.5 W with a temperature rise of 27 °C. It is noteworthy that a high output power density (as high as 32.8 W cm−3) was obtained under a maximum input voltage of 180 V, which is comparable to the performance of PZT in a piezoelectric ceramic transformer device.