Giant dynamic electromechanical response via field driven pseudo-ergodicity in nonergodic relaxors

• Published in: Nature communications 2023-04, Vol.14 (1), p.2414-9, Article 2414
• Main Authors: Qi, He, Hu, Tengfei, Deng, Shiqing, Liu, Hui, Fu, Zhengqian, Chen, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 147/137; 147/143; 639/301/1005/1007; 639/301/119/996; Actuators; Electric fields; Ergodic processes; Ferroelectric materials; Ferroelectricity; Ferroelectrics; Freezing; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lattice strain; multidisciplinary; Phase transitions; Polarization; Relaxors; Room temperature; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Synchrotron radiation; Synchrotrons; Temperature; X-ray diffraction
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38006-6

Enhanced electromechanical response can commonly be found during the crossover from normal to relaxor ferroelectric state, making relaxors to be potential candidates for actuators. In this work, (Pb 0.917 La 0.083 )(Zr 0.65 Ti 0.35 ) 0.97925 O 3 ceramic was taken as a case study, which shows a critical nonergodic state with both double-like P-E loop and irreversible relaxor-normal ferroelectric phase after poling at room temperature. The low-hysteresis linear-like S-P 2 loop, in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscope results suggest that the nonpolar relaxor state acts as a bridge during polarization reorientation process, accompanying which lattice strain contributes to 61.8% of the total strain. In other words, the transformation from normal ferroelectric to nonergodic relaxor state could be triggered by electric field through polarization contraction, which could change to be spontaneously with slightly increasing temperature in the nonergodic relaxor zone. Therefore, pseudo-ergodicity in nonergodic relaxors (i.e. reversible nonergodic-normal ferroelectric phase transition) driven by periodic electric field should be the main mechanism for obtaining large electrostrain close to the nonergodic-ergodic relaxor boundary. This work provides new insights into polarization reorientation process in relaxor ferroelectrics, especially phase instability in nonergodic relaxor zone approaching to freezing temperature. High-performance relaxor ferroelectrics have been widely used in industry. Here the authors show that the enhanced electromechanical response is related to the pseudo ergodicity of nonergodic relaxor ferroelectrics under periodic electric field.