Direct Ink writing of dense and complex shaped doped-BaTiO3 ceramics for acoustic transducer applications

Barium titanate is a well-known ferroelectric ceramic due to its dielectric and piezoelectric properties allowing its integration in a wide range of fields such as biomedical or Defence applications as actuators, sensors, acoustic transducer and many other devices. The enhance of the performance of these devices requires materials with increasingly complex shapes which is restricted by current machining steps. This communication reports on the elaboration of BaTiO3-based materials by DIW through high loaded slurries consisting in 79 %wt barium titanate (BT) with various PVB content from 0 %wt to 0.25 %wt whose rheological behaviour ensures good ink printability depending on the printing strategy and the characterization of the printed parts. Dense ceramic cuboids manufactured by layer-by-layer (LbL-DIW) material deposition with a PVB-containing ink, reaching 95% relative density. Piezoelectric and dielectric properties are close those obtained conventionally with d33 values up to 245 pC/N, similar relative permittivity and dielectric losses inferior to 1% as needed for transducer applications. In addition, the integration of this manufacturing technique for the elaboration of piezoelectric 1–3 composites are discussed in this study through both ink’s parameter leading the feasibility of ceramic parts for piezoelectric composite such as 1–3 composite by vertical extrusion (V-DIW).