2016 Volume 53 Issue 12 Pages 824-831
Recently, development of lead-free piezoelectric materials has been receiving great attention because of environmental issues. Among several ferroelectric oxides, BaTiO3 has been attractive as a potential candidate. This review report describes the processing of nonreducible BaTiO3-based ceramics for multilayer piezoelectric actuator devices using base metal internal electrodes. Reduction-resistant BaTiO3-based ceramics were fabricated by appropriately modifying the chemical composition in Mn-doped （Ba,Ca）TiO3 ceramics. To improve their electrical properties, grain-oriented ceramics were also prepared by the reactive templated grain growth method using platelike BaTiO3 and CaTiO3 particles. The electrical properties of the BaTiO3-based ceramics, sintered in the reducing atmosphere （oxygen partial pressure below 0.1 Pa）, were markedly improved as a result of fabricating grain-oriented samples.
