2001/08/31 by D. La-Orauttapong, B. Noheda, Beatriz Noheda +6 · 3 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Microwave Dielectric Ceramics Synthesis #Multiferroics and related materials #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.65.144101
published as Phys. Rev. B. 65, 144101 (2002) · REVTeX file. 7 figures embedded. New version after referees' Comments.=A0
arxiv created 2001/11/01 · openalex publication_date 2002/03/14 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2020/09/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Recently, a new orthorhombic phase has been discovered in the ferroelectric system (1\ensuremath-x)Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3\ensuremath-xPbTiO3 (PZN\ensuremath-xPT) for x=9%, and for x=8% after the application of an electric field. In the present work, synchrotron x-ray measurements have been extended to higher concentrations 10%<~x<~15%. The orthorhombic phase was observed for x=10%, but, surprisingly, for x>~11% only a tetragonal phase was found down to 20 K. The orthorhombic phase thus exists only in a narrow concentration range with near-vertical phase boundaries on both sides. This orthorhombic symmetry (MC type) is in contrast to the monoclinic MA-type symmetry recently identified at low temperatures in the Pb(Zr_1\ensuremath-xTix)O3 (PZT) system over a triangle-shaped region of the phase diagram in the range x=0.46--0.52. To further characterize this relaxor-type system, neutron inelastic scattering measurements have also been performed on a crystal of PZN\ensuremath-xPT with x=15%. The anomalous soft-phonon behavior (``waterfall'' effect) previously observed for x=0% and 8% is clearly observed for the 15% crystal, which indicates that the presence of polar nanoregions extends to large values of x.