Recently, many lead-free piezoelectric materials have been investigated for the replacement of existing Pb-based piezoelectric ceramics because of globally increasing environmental interest. There has been remarkable improvement in piezoelectric properties of some lead-free ceramics such as (Bi, Na) Ti03-(Bi, K) Ti03-BaTiO3, (Na, K) Nb03-LiSbO3, and so on. However, no one still has comparable piezoelectric properties to lead-based materials. Therefore, new lead-free piezoelectric ceramics are required. BiFeO3 has a rhombohedrally distorted perovskite structure at room temperature and a very high Curie temperature (Tc=1,100 K). And a very large electric polarization of 50~60 uC/cm2 has been reported both in epitaxial thin film and single crystal BiFeO3. Therefore, a high piezoelectric effect is expected also in a BiFeO3 ceramics. The recent research activities on BiFeO3 or BiFeO3-based solid solutions are reviewed in this article.
