title: Piezoelectric textured ceramics: Effective properties and application to ultrasonic transducers.
abstract: Piezoelectric textured ceramics obtained by homo-template grain growth (HTGG) were recently demonstrated. A simple model with several assumptions has been used to calculate effective parameters of these new materials. Different connectivities have been simulated to show that spatial arrangements between the considered phases have little influence on the effective parameters, even through the 3-0 connectivity delivers the highest electromechanical thickness factor. A transducer based on a textured ceramic sample has been fabricated and characterised to show the efficiency of these piezoelectric materials. Finally, in a single element transducer configuration, simulation shows an improvement of 2 dB sensitivity for a transducer made with textured ceramic in comparison with a similar transducer design based on standard soft PZT (at equivalent bandwidths).
authors.affiliation: François-Rabelais University, LUSSI, 10 boulevard Tonnellé, BP 3223, 37032 Tours cedex 1, France. levassort@univ-tours.fr <levassort@univ-tours.fr>
authors.forename: Franck
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Levassort
authors.forename: Mai
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pham Thi
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hemery
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marechal
authors.forename: Louis-Pascal
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Tran-Huu-Hue
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lethiecq