Exceptional High-Power and Field-Stable Performance in Hard Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃-Rich Textured Ceramics

The novel textured piezoelectric ceramics exploit strong intrinsic crystallographic anisotropy to markedly enhance the piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃, reaching single-crystal-like piezoelectric performance. Substantial progress has been made in enhancing soft properties of textured ceramics; however, developing hard textured ceramics remains limited and fails to achieve excellent high-power performance, as hard piezoceramics demand co-optimizing contradictory properties of d₃₃, mechanical quality factor Q_m, and excitation electric field E for obtaining large vibration velocity v. Previous works on hard textured ceramics have primarily focused on PbTiO₃ (PT)-based or PbZr_1-xTi_xO₃ (PZT)-poor systems, which suffer from limited E and poor electric/thermal field stability due to low coercive field E_C and low Curie temperature T_C. Here, the PZT-rich composition is selected as the matrix and synergistically integrated defect engineering with crystallographic anisotropy to obtain high-performance hard textured piezoceramics. The as-designed and first-reported Mn-doped 0.1PYN-0.9PZT textured ceramics simultaneously exhibit large v (≈0.9 m s^-1), high E_C (≈11.4 kV cm^-1), and T_C (≈340 °C), outperforming common hard lead-based random ceramics, textured ceramics, and single crystals. Furthermore, the comprehensive analysis of loss mechanisms from the perspectives of domain dynamics and intrinsic piezoelectric response, conducted by high-resolution microscopy and piezoelectric force microscopy, reveals that the excellent high-power performance originates from enhanced figure of merit (FOM = d₃₃×Q_m×E) and superior electric/thermal field stability. This work successfully demonstrates high-performance hard PZT-rich textured piezoceramics, a breakthrough with significant application potential in high-power piezoelectric devices such as underwater acoustic transducers.