Abstract
Extending photocarrier lifetime, accelerating photostrictive strain buildup, and engaging more light–lattice interactions are essential to increase the bulk photostriction rate—a key figure of merit integrating strain magnitude and generation speed (typically < 10−3 s−1 in bulk ferroelectrics)—for efficient remote ultrasound generation. Here, we report non-poled terbium-doped (K,Na)NbO3 ceramics, where Tb3+ 4f-electron trapping prolongs photocarrier lifetime, enabling efficient carrier drift to domain walls for screening depolarization field. Hierarchical nanostructures—dense nanodomains (accelerating photostriction via coupled local bulk photovoltaic and converse piezoelectric effects) and subwavelength grains (more light–lattice interactions and enhancing collective photostriction)—yield an outstanding bulk photostriction rate of 6.41×10−1 s−1, two orders above conventional bulk ferroelectrics. Non-poled ceramics avoid depoling issue, enabling robust and low power opto-ultrasonic transducers for reliable remote structural health monitoring. Our bulk ferroelectric design strategy enables cost-effective, high-performance opto-ultrasonic sensing technologies.
Data availability
The data generated in this study are provided in the Supplementary Information.
Code availability
MATLAB scripts are available from the first author and corresponding authors upon request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support by “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” and research grant supported by National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFB3201100), A*STAR-RIE2020 AME Industry Alignment Fund–Pre-positioning Program (IAF-PP) (grant no. A20F5a0043), AME Programmatic Fund (Grant No. A20G9b0135), RIE2025, IAF-ICP Grant I2301E0027, and IAF311014R, and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U23A20567, 2172128, 52172128 and 52472250). The authors acknowledge the technical support and discussions from TaiHang Laboratory and Zhejiang Shunhui Optical Technology Co., Ltd.
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J. Y. and K.Y. conceived the main idea. J. Y., H. W., J. W. and K. Y. designed and guided the experiments. Material selection, material fabrication by J. Y., H. T., C. Z. and C. L. Device design, improvement and testing by J. Y. The ultrasonic data processing and analysis were done by J. Y. X. S. conducted phase-field simulations. H. T. and J. Y. conducted the PFM characterization and analysis. H. W., Y. Y. and Y. Z. conducted the (S)TEM characterization and analysis, and J. Y. provided the correlation analysis script. D. B. K. L. and C. J. provided technical support for device fabrication and optimization. L. L., Y. S., X. D. and J. S. provided technical support and discussions on the acoustic wave characterization by using the laser scanning vibrometer. J. Y., H. W., F. L., J. W. and K.Y. summarized and analyzed the data, and discussed the results. All authors contributed to discussing and writing the manuscript.
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Yin, J., Yang, Y., Shi, X. et al. Giant photostriction rate for remote opto-ultrasonic structural health monitoring. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69906-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69906-y
