Electrical fracture toughness for electrically conductive deep notches driven by electric fields in depoled lead zirconate titanate ceramics

This study demonstrates that electric fields can fracture depoled lead zirconate titanate ceramics and that the concepts of fracture mechanics can be used to measure the electrical fracture toughness. The electrical fracture toughness (G(C)(E)=263 +/- 35 N/m) is about nine times higher than the mechanical fracture toughness (G(IC)(M)=30.4 +/-3.9 N/m). The highly electrical fracture toughness arises from the greater energy dissipation around the conductive sharp notch tip under purely electric loading, which is impossible under mechanical loading in brittle depoled ceramics. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics