Electric-Field-Insensitive Temperature Stability of Strain in KNN Multilayer Composite Ceramics

The prominent advances in both piezoelectricity and temperature stability of potassium sodium niobate-based ceramics make this material system the most potential alternative to toxic lead-based families. However, previous studies have shown that the excellent temperature stability of the electrostrain can be obtained only under a high electric field. This issue can be well solved by our new proposed strategy of constructing multilayer composite ceramics, where an extremely low electric-field-dependent temperature stability of the strain can be achieved, far outperforming the results reported so far. The synergistic contributions from stacking components with different strain responses under different temperatures and electric field strengths realize the dynamic balance of electrostrain of the multilayer composite ceramics, which is also revealed by phase-field simulation. This work provides new ideas for the artificial structural design for the development of stable and reliable high-performance piezo/ferroelectric ceramics.