Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 228, 1575–1588 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2019-800153-0

Regular Article

Novel layered architecture based on Al₂O₃/ZrO₂/BaTiO₃ for SMART piezoceramic electromechanical converters

¹ Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Technická 3058/10, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic
² Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Technická 2896/2, 616 69 Brno, Czech Republic
³ CEITEC IPM, Institute of Physics of Materials of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Zizkova 513/22, 61662 Brno, Czech Republic
⁴ CEITEC BUT, Brno University of Technology, Purkynova 123, 612 00 Brno, Czech Republic

^a e-mail: tofel@feec.vutbr.cz

Received: 27 September 2018
Received in final form: 19 December 2018
Published online: 23 August 2019

Abstract

The paper is focused on a very hot topic of SMART materials and their architectures for energy conversion systems designed for conversion of mechanical to electrical energy using the piezoelectric effect. The aim of the study is to increase both the reliability and efficiency of electromechanical conversion compared to standard concepts. Our new design of piezoelectric cantilever is made with multi-layer ceramic composite, where piezoelectric layer BaTiO₃ is covered by protective ceramics layers of different residual stresses, where Al₂O₃ and ZrO₂ is used. Utilization of controlled residual stresses into new multi-layer architecture is the key idea and it is crucial for optimal design of the individual layers of the proposed concept. The multi-layer ceramic composite is fabricated by electrophoretic deposition, where the composite is assembled from different ceramic materials during processing and after sintering we get inseparable ceramic laminate consisting of piezoelectric and protective layers of ceramics. This approach of processing multi-layer ceramic material including lead free piezoelectric layers is innovative and has never been published before.