Abstract:

Application of ultrasonic transducers for high-power piezoelectric devices such as motors and actuators has been vigorously studied in recent years. Those devices are usually driven at a rather high vibration level. However, it was shown that a drastic change in the electromechanical properties, as well as a great amount of heat generation, occurred above certain vibration velocity due to the large electrical and mechanical loss. In this research, lead magnesium niobium oxide-lead titanium (PMN-PT) based material were prepared and studied. The PMN-based ceramics is intriguing due to their extremely high electro-mechanical coupling factors. Combined with lead titanium and modified by some dopants, the mechanical quality can be much improved. The properties under high level driving and loss mechanisms of PMN-PT with different dopants will be reported in this paper. [Work supported by ONR.]