High temperature‐insensitive ferro‐/piezoelectric properties and nanodomain structures of Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–PbZrO3–Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbTiO3 relaxor single crystals

Abstract

AbstractFor rhombohedral (R) Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–PbZrO3–Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbTiO3 (PIN–PZ–PMN–PT) relaxor single crystal, high temperature‐insensitive behaviors under different external stimuli were observed (remnant polarization Pr from 30°C to 180°C and piezoelectric strain d33* from 30°C to 116°C). When electric field E ≥ 50 kV/cm in the case of an activation field Ea = 40‐50 kV/cm was applied, it was found that the domain switching was accompanied by a phase transition. The high relaxor nature of the R phase PIN–PZ–PMN–PT was speculated to account for the large Ea and high piezoelectric response. The short‐range correlation lengths extracted from the out‐of‐plane (OP) and in‐plane (IP) nanodomain images, were 64 nm and 89 nm, respectively, which proved the high relaxor nature due to In3+ and Zr4+ ions entering the B‐site in the ABO3‐lattice and enhancing the disorder of B‐site cations in the R phase PIN–PZ–PMN–PT. The switching process of R nanodomain variants under the step‐increased tip DC voltage was visually revealed. Moreover, the time‐dependent domain evolution confirmed the high relaxor nature of the R phase PIN–PZ–PMN–PT single crystal.