Investigations on the electrical properties, domain structure, and local piezoelectric response in 0.3Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)–0.4Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)–0.3PbTiO3 single crystal

Abstract

High-Curie temperature relaxor ferroelectric single crystals attracted attention recently due to the excellent global electrical properties for electromechanical devices. In this work, the electrical properties, domain structure, and local piezoelectric response of ternary 0.3Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)–0.4Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)–0.3PbTiO3 (0.3PIN-0.4PMN-0.3PT) single crystal was investigated. Large electric field-induced strain with little hysteresis was obtained in -oriented high-quality crystal. Nanosized fingerprint pattern domain of ~ 100–300 nm with obvious local piezoelectric response was observed. The temperature-dependent dielectric spectrum revealed a ferroelectric rhombohedral to tetragonal phase transition at 106 °C, obviously higher than that of binary 0.7Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.3PbTiO3 single-crystal (~80 °C). The evolution of the ferroelectric property and strain response was also studied at elevated temperature. The temperature dependence of the PFM results demonstrated that the surface domain structure of the 0.3PIN–0.4PMN–0.3PT single crystals could still be detected above the Curie temperature. The local piezoelectric hysteresis loop exhibited strong dependence on the DC bias field and obvious local butterfly shape displacement curve could be induced at 180 °C under larger local DC field.