Perovskite phase formation and ferroelectric properties of the lead nickel niobateâ•filead zinc niobateâ•filead zirconate titanate ternary system

The ternary system of lead nickel niobate Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O3 (PNN), lead zinc niobate Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 (PZN), and lead zirconate titanate Pb(Zr1/2Ti1/2)O3 (PZT) was investigated to determine the influence of different solid state processing conditions on dielectric and ferroelectric properties. The ceramic materials were characterized using x-ray diffraction, dielectric measurements, and hysteresis measurements. To stabilize the perovskite phase, the columbite route was utilized with a double crucible technique and excess PbO. The phase-pure perovskite phase of PNN–PZN–PZT ceramics was obtained over a wide compositional range. It was observed that for the ternary system 0.5PNN–(0.5 x)PZN–xPZT, the change in the transition temperature (Tm) is approximately linear with respect to the PZT content in the range x [H11505] 0 to 0.5. With an increase in x, Tm shifts up to high temperatures. Examination of the remanent polarization (Pr) revealed a significant increase with increasing x. In addition, the relative permittivity ([H9280]r) increased as a function of x. The highest permittivities ([H9280]r[H11505] 22,000) and the highest remanent polarization (Pr [H11505] 25 μC/cm2) were recorded for the binary composition 0.5Pb(Ni1/3Nb2/ 3)O3–0.5Pb(Zr1/2Ti1/2)O3. Disciplines Materials Science and Engineering Comments This article is from Journal of Materials Research 18 (2003): 2882, doi:10.1557/JMR.2003.0402. Posted with permission. This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/mse_pubs/33