Role of Random Electric Fields in Relaxors

Published

February 14, 2014

Author(s)

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

Abstract

Pb(Zr_1¿xTi_x)O₃ (PZT) and Pb[(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)_1¿xTi_x]O₃ (PMN-xPT) are complex lead-oxide perovskites that display exceptional piezoelectric properties for pseudo-rhombohedral 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 PMNxPT and other lead-oxide 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. Comparing dielectric, structural, lattice dynamical, and piezoelectric measurements on PZT and PMN-xPT, two effectively identical compounds that represent weak and strong random electric field limits, we show that randomfields establish the relaxor phase and identify the order parameter.

Citation

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volume

111

Issue

5

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Relaxors, Random Fields, Diffuse Scattering, PMN, PZT, Piezoelectricity, Neutron Scattering

Citation

Phelan, D. , Stock, C. , Rodriguez Rivera, J. , Chi, S. , Leao, J. , Long, X. , Xie, Y. , Bokov, A. , Ye, Z. , Ganesh, P. and Gehring, P. (2014), Role of Random Electric Fields in Relaxors, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=914379 (Accessed November 7, 2025)