Role of random electric fields in relaxors

Daniel Phelan, Christopher Stock, Jose A. Rodriguez-Rivera, Songxue Chi, Juscelino Leão, Xifa Long, Yujuan Xie, Alexei A. Bokov, Zuo Guang Ye, Panchapakesan Ganesh, Peter M. Gehring

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    132 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    PbZr1-xTixO3 (PZT) and Pb(Mg 1/3Nb2/3)1-xTixO3 (PMN-xPT) are complex lead-oxide perovskites that display exceptional piezoelectric properties for pseudorhombohedral compositions near a tetragonal phase boundary. In PZT these compositions are ferroelectrics, but in PMN-xPT they are relaxors because the dielectric permittivity is frequency dependent and exhibits non-Arrhenius behavior. We show that the nanoscale structure unique to PMN-xPT and other lead-oxide perovskite relaxors is absent in PZT and correlates with a greater than 100% enhancement of the longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient in PMN-xPT relative to that in PZT. By comparing dielectric, structural, lattice dynamical, and piezoelectric measurements on PZT and PMN-xPT, two nearly identical compounds that represent weak and strong random electric field limits, we show that quenched (static) random fields establish the relaxor phase and identify the order parameter.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1754-1759
    Number of pages6
    JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
    Volume111
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Feb 4 2014

    Keywords

    • Lead zirconate titanate
    • Neutron scattering
    • Piezoelectricity
    • Short-range order
    • Soft modes

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