Temperature dependence of field-response mechanisms in 0.4Ba(Zr_0.2Ti_0.8)O₃-0.6(Ba_0.7Ca_0.3)TiO₃

Understanding the temperature dependence of how ferroelectric materials respond to electric fields is critical for determining how best to use these materials in applications. Here, temperature dependent in situ x-ray diffraction is used to study how field-response mechanism Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3-x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 evolves with temperature. Increasing the measurement temperature was found to slightly reduce the extent of domain reversal and the magnitude of the 111 lattice strain. Instead, these results indicate that temperature predominantly impacted the angular dependence of the 002/200 lattice strain. We attribute the observed differences in 002/200 lattice strain to the flattening of the free-energy near the tetragonal-orthorhombic phase boundary, where the flattening of the energy landscape promotes a polarization rotation response during the application of electric fields at room temperature.