Boosting energy harvesting performances of fine‐grained piezoceramics by samarium doping strategy

The construction of fine‐grained piezoceramics with large transduction coefficient ( d 33  ×  g 33 ) and mechanical properties is the key to the development of high‐quality piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs). In this work, samarium doping strategy is used to optimize the properties of Pb(Zn 1/3 Nb 2/3 ) 0.20 (Zr 1/2 Ti 1/2 ) 0.80 O 3 (0.2PZN‐0.8PZT) piezoceramics. The results show that Sm 2 O 3 additive can effectively refine the grain size accompanied with the enhanced mechanical properties. Meanwhile, the Sm 2 O 3 addition induced the formation of local structural heterogeneity accompanied by the reduced domain size, which boosts the transduction coefficient. A cantilever beam type PEH was further assembled from the preferred samarium modified material, and the power density was up to 489 μW/cm 3 at 1 g acceleration. Excitingly, its relative charging ability to commercial electrolytic capacitor has a relative enhancement of ~91% compared to the undoped counterpart. This work not only provides a piezoceramic with excellent energy harvesting characteristics, but also demonstrates a new important paradigm for the development of fast‐charging microelectronic storage devices in wireless sensor networks.