Aging in the Relaxor Ferroelectric PMN/PT

TL;DR

This paper investigates complex aging behaviors in relaxor ferroelectric PMN/PT, revealing regimes of rejuvenation, memory, and cumulative aging, and draws parallels with reentrant ferromagnets and spin glasses.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of aging regimes in PMN/PT relaxor ferroelectrics, highlighting their similarities to magnetic glassy systems and proposing a competition model.

Findings

Multiple aging regimes identified in PMN/PT, including rejuvenation and memory.

Frequency-aging time scaling observed below 260 K.

Aging effects are stable against thermal and field perturbations.

Abstract

The relaxor ferroelectric (PbMn$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$O$_3$)$_{1-x}$(PbTiO$_3$)$_{x}$, $x=0.1$, (PMN/PT(90/10)) is found to exhibit several regimes of complicated aging behavior. Just below the susceptibility peak there is a regime exhibiting rejuvenation but little memory. At lower temperature, there is a regime with mainly cumulative aging, expected for simple domain-growth. At still lower temperature, there is a regime with both rejuvenation and memory, reminiscent of spin glasses. PMN/PT (88/12) is also found to exhibit some of these aging regimes. This qualitative aging behavior is reminiscent of that seen in reentrant ferromagnets, which exhibit a crossover from a domain-growth ferromagnetic regime into a reentrant spin glass regime at lower temperatures. These striking parallels suggest a picture of competition in PMN/PT (90/10) between ferroelectric correlations formed in the domain-growth regime with glassy correlations formed in the spin glass regime. PMN/PT (90/10) is also found to exhibit frequency-aging time scaling of the time-dependent part of the out-of-phase susceptibility for temperatures 260 K and below. The stability of aging effects to thermal cycles and field perturbations is also reported.