Crystal-oriented La-substituted Sr2NaNb5O15 ceramics fabricated using high-magnetic-field method

To prevent cracking in and improve the piezoelectric properties of what, we fabricated crystal-oriented Sr2-xNa1-xLaxNb5O15 (SNLN) ceramics using the. high-magnetic-field method. With increasing amount of La substituted in SNLNs, the bonding strength along the c-axis increased and the crystal anisotropy of coefficient of linear expansion decreased, and as a result cracks were prevented. a-b-plane-oriented SNLNs with Lotgering factors of 0.5 to 0.6 were fabricated. These oriented SNLNs with restrained cracks had lower La contents x >= 0.05 than randomly oriented SNLNs. The piezoelectric constant of the oriented SNLNs with x = 0.05 had d(33) = 95 pC/N, which increased up to 1.5-fold that of randomly oriented SNLNs. It was apparent that the crystal-oriented SNLN ceramics could show restrained cracks and enhanced piezoelectric properties.