• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.55-71
• /
• 2013

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is vital for detecting the onset of damage and for preventing catastrophic failure of civil infrastructure systems. In particular, piezoelectric transducers have the ability to excite and actively interrogate structures (e.g., using surface waves) while measuring their response for sensing and damage detection. In fact, piezoelectric transducers such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) have been used for various laboratory/field tests and possess significant advantages as compared to visual inspection and vibration-based methods, to name a few. However, PZTs are inherently brittle, and PVDF films do not possess high piezoelectricity, thereby limiting each of these devices to certain specific applications. The objective of this study is to design, characterize, and validate piezoelectric nanocomposites consisting of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles assembled in a PVDF copolymer matrix for sensing and SHM applications. These films provide greater mechanical flexibility as compared to PZTs, yet possess enhanced piezoelectricity as compared to pristine PVDF copolymers. This study started with spin coating dispersed ZnO- and PVDF-TrFE-based solutions to fabricate the piezoelectric nanocomposites. The concentration of ZnO nanoparticles was varied from 0 to 20 wt.% (in 5 % increments) to determine their influence on bulk film piezoelectricity. Second, their electric polarization responses were obtained for quantifying thin film remnant polarization, which is directly correlated to piezoelectricity. Based on these results, the films were poled (at 50 $MV-m^{-1}$) to permanently align their electrical domains and to enhance their bulk film piezoelectricity. Then, a series of hammer impact tests were conducted, and the voltage generated by poled ZnO-based thin films was compared to commercially poled PVDF copolymer thin films. The hammer impact tests showed comparable results between the prototype and commercial samples, and increasing ZnO content provided enhanced piezoelectric performance. Lastly, the films were further validated for sensing using different energy levels of hammer impact, different distances between the impact locations and the film electrodes, and cantilever free vibration testing for dynamic strain sensing.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.160-165
• /
• 2015

Lead-free piezoelectric materials have been actively studied to substitute for conventional PZT based solid solution, $Pb(Zr_xTi_{1-x}O_3)$, which occurs unavoidable PbO during the sintering process. Among them, Bismuth Sodium Titanate, $Na_{0.5}Bi_{0.5}TiO_3$ (abbreviated as NBT) based solid solution is attracted for the one of excellent candidates which shows the strong ferroelectricity, Curie temperature (Tc), remnant polarization (Pr) and coercive field (Ec). Especially, the solid solution of rhombohedral phase NBT with tetragonal perovskite phase has a rhombohedral - tetragonal morphotropic phase boundary. Modified NBT with tetragonal perovskite at the region of MPB can be applied for high frequency ultrasonic application because of not only its low permittivity, high electrocoupling factor and high mechanical strength, but also effective piezoelectric activity by poling. In this study, solid state ceramic processing of NBT and modified NBT, $(Na_{0.5}Bi_{0.5})_{0.93}Ba_{0.7}TiO_3$ (abbreviated as NBT-7BT), at the region of MPB using 7 % $BaTiO_3$ as a tetragonal perovskite was introduced and the structure between NBT and NBT-7BT were analyzed using rietveld refinement. Also, the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of NBT-7BT such as permittivity, piezoelectric constant, polarization hysteresis and strain hysteresis loop were compared with those of pure NBT.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.873-876
• /
• 2000

Characteristics of piezoelectric thick films prepared by screen printing method were investigated. The piezoelectric thick films were printed using Pb(Mg,Nb)O$_3$-Pb(Zr,Ti)O$_3$system. The lower electrodes were coated with various thickness of Ag-Pd by screen printing to investigate the effect as a diffusion barrier and deposited with Pt by sputtering on Ag-Pd. The ceramic paste was prepared by mixing powder and binder with various ratios using three roll miller. The fabricated thick films were burned out at 650$^{\circ}C$ and sintered at 950$^{\circ}C$ in the O$_2$condition for each 20, 60min after printing with 350mesh screen. The thickness of piezoelectric thick film was 15∼20 $\mu\textrm{m}$ and the Ag-Pd electrode acted as a diffusion barrier above 3 $\mu\textrm{m}$ thickness. When the lower electrode Ag-Pd was 6 $\mu\textrm{m}$ and the piezoelectric thick films were sintered by 2nd step (650$^{\circ}C$/20min and 950$^{\circ}C$/1h) using paste mixed Pb(Mg,Nb)O$_3$-Pb(Zr,Ti)O$_3$$.$ MnO$_2$+ Bi$_2$O$_3$. V$_2$O$\_$5/ and binder in the ratio of 70:30, the remnant polarization of thick film was 9.1 ${\mu}$C /cm$^2$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.15 no.12
• /
• pp.1060-1064
• /
• 2002

We have studied the effect of crystallization temperature, composition and film thickness, which are the fundamental processing parameters of lead zirconate titanate(PZT) thin film fabrication, in the respect of the piezoelectric properties by our pneumatic loading method(PLM). A great deal of research has been done in the field of characterization for piezoelectric thin films after the first report on the measurement for the piezoelectric coefficient of thin films in 1990. Even though the piezoelectric properties of thin films are very critical factors in the micro-electro mechanical system(MEMS) and thin film sensor devices, a few reports for the piezoelectric characterization are provided for the last decade unlikely the bulk piezoelectric devices. We have found that the piezoelectric properties of thin films are improved as the increase of crystallization temperature up to 750$\^{C}$ and this behavior can be also explained by the analysis of dielectric polarization hysteresis loop, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The effect of Zr/Ti composition has been also studied. This gives us the fact that the maximum piezoelectricity is found near Morphotropic Phase Boundary(MPB) as bulk PZT system does.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.1315-1320
• /
• 2012

In this study, piezoelectric AC-DC converter using ring-dot type multilayer piezoelectric transformer with no anisotropic of polarization was developed. Considering the characteristics of piezoelectric transformer which is very narrow operating frequency range, piezoelectric converter was designed with mixed structure of PFM driving method for feedback control of oscillation frequency and PWM driving method for output control. Maximum power and allowed current of the developed piezoelectric converter showing stable driving with minimum heat was 25W and 900mA, respectively. The output voltage of the piezoelectric converter was controlled by the driving oscillation frequency and showed stable and efficient operating characteristics at the maximum power.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.08a
• /
• pp.99-99
• /
• 2013

In this talk, I will present two research works in progress, which are: i) mapping of piezoelectric polarization and associated charge density distribution in the heteroepitaxial InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) structure of a light emitting diode (LED) by using inline electron holography and ii) in-situ observation of the polarization switching process of an ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-x,Tix)O3 (PZT) thin film capacitor under an applied electric field in transmission electron microscope (TEM). In the first part, I will show that strain as well as total charge density distributions can be mapped quantitatively across all the functional layers constituting a LED, including n-type GaN, InGaN/GaN MQWs, and p-type GaN with sub-nm spatial resolution (~0.8 nm) by using inline electron holography. The experimentally obtained strain maps were verified by comparison with finite element method simulations and confirmed that not only InGaN QWs (2.5 nm in thickness) but also GaN QBs (10 nm in thickness) in the MQW structure are strained complementary to accommodate the lattice misfit strain. Because of this complementary strain of GaN QBs, the strain gradient and also (piezoelectric) polarization gradient across the MQW changes more steeply than expected, resulting in more polarization charge density at the MQW interfaces than the typically expected value from the spontaneous polarization mismatch alone. By quantitative and comparative analysis of the total charge density map with the polarization charge map, we can clarify what extent of the polarization charges are compensated by the electrons supplied from the n-doped GaN QBs. Comparison with the simulated energy band diagrams with various screening parameters show that only 60% of the net polarization charges are compensated by the electrons from the GaN QBs, which results in the internal field of ~2.0 MV cm-1 across each pair of GaN/InGaN of the MQW structure. In the second part of my talk, I will present in-situ observations of the polarization switching process of a planar Ni/PZT/SrRuO3 capacitor using TEM. We observed the preferential, but asymmetric, nucleation and forward growth of switched c-domains at the PZT/electrode interfaces arising from the built-in electric field beneath each interface. The subsequent sideways growth was inhibited by the depolarization field due to the imperfect charge compensation at the counter electrode and preexisting a-domain walls, leading to asymmetric switching. It was found that the preexisting a-domains split into fine a- and c-domains constituting a $90^{\circ}$ stripe domain pattern during the $180^{\circ}$ polarization switching process, revealing that these domains also actively participated in the out-of-plane polarization switching. The real-time observations uncovered the origin of the switching asymmetry and further clarified the importance of charged domain walls and the interfaces with electrodes in the ferroelectric switching processes.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1999.07d
• /
• pp.1789-1791
• /
• 1999

In consideration of piezoelectric characteristic and Temperature stability, 3-element system dopped with NiO, $Cr_2O_3$ well-known as Hardner and Stabilizer whose primary element is PZT was eximanated its structure, piezoelectric characteristics, dopping with Nio, $Cr_2O_3$. We think that piezoelectric Characteristic is developed, remenent polarization and $E_c$ can developed in specimens by dopping with NiO, $Cr_2O_3$ additive. also, electromechanical quality factor largely showed tendency of decrement. According to dopping NiO, $Cr_2O_3$ more.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.11 no.7
• /
• pp.569-574
• /
• 2002

Recently, thick PZT films are required for the cases of micro piezoelectric devices with high driving force, high breakdown voltage and high sensitivity, and so on. In this work, thick PZT films were fabricated by Sol-Gel multi-coating method. Microstructures, and electrical properties of films were investigated by XRD, FESEM, impedance analyzer, and P-E hysteresis. PZT films with 2.7$mu extrm{m}$ to 4.4${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ thickness were fabricated. Dielectric constant, loss, remnant polarization and coercive field of them were 880~1650 at 1kHz, 2~3% at 1kHz, 26~32 $\mu$C/$ extrm{cm}^2$, and 33~60kV/cm, respectively. Also a transverse piezoelectric coefficient $(e_{31,f})$ measurement system was fabricated and tested for thick film samples.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.369-382
• /
• 2018

Novel design of interdigitated electrodes capable of increasing the performance of piezoelectric transducers are proposed. The new electrodes' geometry improve the electromechanical coupling by offering an enhanced adaptation of the electric field to the interdigitated electrode configuration. The proposed analysis is based on finite element modeling and takes into account local polarization effect. It is shown that the proposed electrodes considerably increase the strain generation compared to flat electrode arrangement used for Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) and Active Fiber Composite (AFC) actuators. Also, electric field singularities are reduced allowing better reliability of the transducer against electric failure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2010.06a
• /
• pp.327-327
• /
• 2010

In this paper, an investigation of factors affecting piezoelectric transformers is presented by ATILA software. These transformers are multi-layer piezoelectric transformers in square shape $28\;{\times}\;28\;mm$ and operate in first vibration mode for step-down function. The piezoelectric transformers were modeled in 3D-dimension and analyzed using finite element method in ATILA software, a popular software in piezoelectric analysis. Modal and harmonic modules were used in this process. Effective factors to the properties of piezoelectric transformers including different input electrode patterns, directions of polarization, sizes of connective comer, number of layers were examined on the simulated model using input voltage of 20 V and load resistance of $100\;{\Omega}$. Moreover, thermal analysis was also obtained with conditions of input voltage of 5 V and no-load.