Boosting energy harvesting performances of fine‐grained piezoceramics by samarium doping strategy

Abstract

Abstract The construction of fine‐grained piezoceramics with large transduction coefficient (d33 × g33) and mechanical properties is the key to the development of high‐quality piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs). In this work, samarium doping strategy is used to optimize the properties of Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)0.20(Zr1/2Ti1/2)0.80O3 (0.2PZN‐0.8PZT) piezoceramics. The results show that Sm2O3 additive can effectively refine the grain size accompanied with the enhanced mechanical properties. Meanwhile, the Sm2O3 addition induced the formation of local structural heterogeneity accompanied by the reduced domain size, which boosts the transduction coefficient. A cantilever beam type PEH was further assembled from the preferred samarium modified material, and the power density was up to 489 μW/cm3 at 1 g acceleration. Excitingly, its relative charging ability to commercial electrolytic capacitor has a relative enhancement of ~91% compared to the undoped counterpart. This work not only provides a piezoceramic with excellent energy harvesting characteristics, but also demonstrates a new important paradigm for the development of fast‐charging microelectronic storage devices in wireless sensor networks.

Keywords

• domain structure
• local structural heterogeneity
• mechanical properties
• piezoelectric energy harvesters
• power generation