Transparent ferroelectric crystals with ultrahigh piezoelectricity

Transparent piezoelectrics are highly desirable for numerous hybrid ultrasound–optical devices ranging from photoacoustic imaging transducers to transparent actuators for haptic applications^1–7. However, it is challenging to achieve high piezoelectricity and perfect transparency simultaneously because most high-performance piezoelectrics are ferroelectrics that contain high-density light-scattering domain walls. Here, through a combination of phase-field simulations and experiments, we demonstrate a relatively simple method of using an alternating-current electric field to engineer the domain structures of originally opaque rhombohedral Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMN-PT) crystals to simultaneously generate near-perfect transparency, an ultrahigh piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃ (greater than 2,100 picocoulombs per newton), an excellent electromechanical coupling factor k₃₃ (about 94 per cent) and a large electro-optical coefficient γ₃₃ (approximately 220 picometres per volt), which is far beyond the performance of the commonly used transparent ferroelectric crystal LiNbO₃. We find that increasing the domain size leads to a higher d₃₃ value for the [001]-oriented rhombohedral PMN-PT crystals, challenging the conventional wisdom that decreasing the domain size always results in higher piezoelectricity^8–10. This work presents a paradigm for achieving high transparency and piezoelectricity by ferroelectric domain engineering, and we expect the transparent ferroelectric crystals reported here to provide a route to a wide range of hybrid device applications, such as medical imaging, self-energy-harvesting touch screens and invisible robotic devices.