Determination of room-temperature creep of soft lead zirconate titanate piezoceramics under static electric fields Available to Purchase

This study focuses on the experimental investigation of the time-dependent effects of a commercial soft lead zirconate titanate material at room temperature. Samples in initially unpoled states were subjected to a cyclic stepwise electric field which was kept constant at different levels for 300 s. Due to ferroelectric domain switching, significant nonlinearity and hysteresis were observed in the overall polarization and strain response. In particular, the material exhibited creep behavior as the applied electric field was held constant over extended periods of time. This creep was caused by microscopic domain switching processes induced gradually during the holding time. The creep was of primary or transient type in nature and depended strongly on the magnitude of the load applied. Most pronounced creep was observed when holding the field close to the coercive field. Logarithmic representation of the polarization or strain versus time curves indicated that the creep behavior could be quantified approximately by the Andrade power law. The creep exponents were determined for different field conditions. The results may help the understanding of the creep mechanism, which in turn provides contributions to improve the performance and reliability of ultrahigh-precision positioning piezoactuators.