Investigation of relaxors that transform spontaneously into ferroelectrics

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Abstract
B-site disordered Pb(Sc½Ta½)O3 and Pb(Sc½Nb½)O3 can be prepared in a controlled manner to show (a) relaxor behavior and (b) relaxor that undergoes a first order ferroelectric phase transition at zero-bias field. The latter case is a first demonstration of a spontaneous transformation from relaxor to ferroelectric state. TEM, DSC and dielectric and electric characterization techniques are used to investigate this phase transformation and the results are reported. The spontaneous transformation is analyzed in light of existing relaxor models. It is found that cation-anion bond strength can be used as a criterion to predict materials with spontaneous relaxor-ferroelectric transformation.