Freezing of the local dynamics in the relaxor ferroelectric PZN-4.5PT

Abstract

We report measurements of the neutron diffuse scattering in a single crystal of the relaxor ferroelectric material 95.5%Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-4.5%PbTiO3 (PZN-4.5%PT). We show that the diffuse scattering at high temperatures has a quasielastic component with energy width $\agt$ 0.1 meV. On cooling the total diffuse scattering intensity increases, but the intensity and the energy width of the quasielastic component gradually diminish. At 50 K the diffuse scattering is completely static (i.e.the energy width lies within the limits of our instrumental resolution). This suggests that the dynamics of the short-range correlated atomic displacements associated with the diffuse scattering freeze at low temperature. We find that this depends on the wave vector q as the quasielastic diffuse scattering intensities associated with <001> (T1-type) and <110> (T2-type) atomic displacements vary differently with temperature and electric field.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Phase instability induced by polar nanoregions in a relaxor ferroelectric system
• A reassessment of the Burns temperature and its relationship to the diffuse scattering, lattice dynamics, and thermal expansion in the relaxor PMN
• Coexistence and competition of local- and long-range polar orders in a ferroelectric relaxor
• Neutron and X-ray diffraction study of cubic [111] field cooled Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3
• Disorder and relaxation mode in the lattice dynamics of PbMg${}_{1/3}$Nb${}_{2/3}$O${}_3$ relaxor ferroelectric
• A two-component model of the neutron diffuse scattering in the relaxor ferroelectric PZN-4.5%PT
• Response of polar nanoregions in 68%Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-32%PbTiO3 to a [001] electric field

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Fluctuating defects in the incipient relaxor K${}_{1-x}$Li${}_x$TaO${}_3$ (x=0.02)
• Fast broadband cluster spin-glass dynamics in PbFe${}_{1/2}$Nb${}_{1/2}$O${}_3$