Project: Epitaxial growth of (Ba,Ca)(Ti,Zr)O3 film on flexible metallic tape via chemical solution deposition

2020-11-01 – 2023-10-31

Abstract

Today, piezoelectric materials play an important role in numerous applications such as sensors, actuators, transducers, and energy harvesters. Piezoelectric energy harvesters cannot reach the efficiency and scale of solar cells or wind turbines, but they are excellent power sources where electrical cables are undesired and miniaturization is a key factor. However, Lead-based piezoelectric materials such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 is currently the most widely used material in such systems. This is due to their strong piezoelectric coefficient and electromechanical coupling coefficient. Since these systems use the lead-based precursors, this opens the search for "greener" and "superior" alternatives. In this project we introduce a lead-free (Ba,Ca)(Ti,Zr)O3 (BCTZ) material, which is called promising and has a high piezoelectric coefficient. Chemical deposition technique (CSD) is introduced to develop a cost-effective, reproducible and high quality industrial pathway to epitaxial piezoelectric BCTZ thin film on flexible metallic tape. It has been made possible through the introduction of CSD-based buffer(multi)layer(s) architecture as the epitaxial quality of the BCTZ films depends on it. All this can be a door opener for low-cost industrial reel-to-reel production of flexible functional ceramic oxide films on long-life metal tape.