1 mol% Li2O excess 0.9(Na0.52K0.48)NbO3-0.1LiTaO3 lead-free piezoelectric multilayer ceramic actuators were investigated to determine their aging properties. To reduce the thermal aging behavior, we applied a rectified unipolar electric field of 5 kV/mm to the specimen to accelerate the electric aging behavior. By employing a rectified unipolar electric field for the piezoelectric actuators, we could remove undesirable heating from the relaxation current in the motion of the ferroelectric domain. To accelerate the aging test, the applied electric fields had a frequency of 900 Hz. To have enough time for charging and discharging, we employed an accurate time constant to design the equivalent circuit model for the aging tester. To extract exact aging behavior, we measured the pseudo-piezoelectric coefficient before and after the aging process. We also measured the electro-mechanical coupling coefficient, the frequency-dependent dielectric permittivity, and the impedance to compare with fresh and aged specimen.
