Stability of Glassy and Ferroelectric States in the Relaxors PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3 and PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3-12% PbTiO3

Abstract

The stability of the disordered glassy phase in the relaxors PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3 and (PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3)0.88(PbTiO3)0.12, called PMN and PMN-PT, was investigated by preparing partially polarized samples and allowing them to age at zero field in the temperature range for which the phase is history-dependent. The PMN-PT polarization would spontaneously increase until long-range order formed, first appearing as giant polarization noise. Thus the thermodynamically stable phase in PMN-PT appears to be ferroelectric. In contrast, a PMN sample lacking the sharp first-order field-driven transition found in some other samples spontaneously depolarized, consistent with its glassy state being thermodynamically stable. Detailed thermal depolarization results in PMN show two distinct broad peaks as well as a small fraction of material with a distribution of abrupt melting transitions.

arXiv commentsubmitted to Phys. Rev. B. 9 text pages + 10 figs

References in corpus (5)

• Direct observation of the formation of polar nanoregions in Pb(Mg${}_{1/3}$Nb${}_{2/3}$)O${}_3$ using neutron pair distribution function analysis
• A Neutron Elastic Diffuse Scattering Study of PMN
• A Universal Phase Diagram for PMN-xPT and PZN-xPT
• Two-step phase changes in cubic relaxor ferroelectrics
• Aging in the Relaxor Ferroelectric PMN/PT

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Barkhausen Noise Probe of the Ferroelectric Transition in the Relaxor PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3-12% PbTiO3
• Non-equilibrium Strain Relaxation Noise in the Relaxor Ferroelectric (PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3)100-x( PbTiO3)x
• Field-Induced Ferroelectric Phase Transition Dynamics in PMN-PT compositions near the Morphotropic Phase Boundary