Solid state grain growth of piezoelectric single crystals

The recent results related to development of the solid state crystal growth process, specially focusing on PMN-PT are presented. The processing parameters such as sintering atmosphere and growth temperature of crystal are discussed. The feasibility of using SSCG for the growth of high T_c piezoelectric materials such as BiScO₃-PbTiO₃ will be also presented. The heteroepitaxial nucleation and growth, are examined in 36BiScO₃-64PbTiO₃ ceramics using SrTiO₃ and BaTiO₃ as template materials. The amount of excess PbO is correlated with the growth distance when BaTiO₃ single crystals are used as templates. More than 100 μm of growth was observed at 1150°C after 16 hr heat treatment for this system. When tabular SrTiO₃ particles are used as template materials, elongated grains ∼10 times larger than matrix grains were observed.