Effects of CuO addition on the structure and electrical properties of low temperature sintered Pb((Zn1/3Nb2/3)0.20(Zr0.50Ti0.50)0.80)O3 ceramics

Low temperature sintering of 0.5 wt.% MnO2-added Pb((Zn1/3Nb2/3)0.20 (Zr0.50Ti0.50)0.80)O3 ceramics (PZNT) was investigated using CuO as sintering aids. It was found that the addition of CuO significantly improved the sinterability of PZNT ceramics, resulting in a reduction of sintering temperature from 1050 to 900 °C. The CuO addition also influences in a pronounced way both the crystal structure and microstructure of the low temperature sintered PZNT materials. The materials are transformed from the tetragonal to the rhombohedral structure, and the grain sizes are decreased when CuO are added. The distortion of crystal structure for PZNT samples with CuO addition can be explained with Jahn–Teller effect for electron state d9 of Cu2+ ion. On the other hand, with the increasing of CuO addition, kp, d33 were slightly decreased, but Qm and tan δ were optimized at 1.5 wt.% CuO.