Abstract
Poled lead zirconate titanate (PZT) material as a single-layer plate was tested using piezodilatometer under electric cyclic loading in both unipolar and bipolar modes. Their responses were evaluated using unipolar and bipolar measurements on the same setup. Mechanical strain and charge density or polarization loops exhibited various variations when the material was cycled to more than 10^8 cycles. Important quantities including loop amplitude, hysteresis, switchable polarization, coercive field have been characterized accordingly under corresponding measurement conditions. At the same time, offset polarization and bias electric field of the material were observed to be changed and the trend was found to be related to the measurement condition also. Finally, the piezoelectric and dielectric coefficients were analyzed and their implications to the application of interest have been discussed.
