Pulsed neutron diffraction study of Zr-rich PZT

TL;DR

This study uses pulsed neutron diffraction to analyze structural changes in Zr-rich PZT across different phases, revealing how strain and tilt angle are coupled and how this relationship varies with Ti content.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the temperature and composition dependence of structural parameters in Zr-rich PZT, especially the strain-tilt coupling and its variation with Ti doping.

Findings

The strain-tilt coupling coefficient decreases linearly with Ti content.

Decoupling of strain and tilt occurs at approximately 30% Ti.

Structural parameters vary systematically across phases and compositions.

Abstract

Pulsed neutron diffraction investigations have been performed in the ferroelectric PZT system, Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3, doped with 1%wt. of Nb2O5, as a function of both temperature and composition. The study has been made in a wide range of temperatures encompassing the three known phases in Zr-rich PZT: ferroelectric low temperature (R3c), ferroelectric high temperature (R3m) and paraelectric (Pm3m). The combination of the temperature and the composition dependence of the structural parameters allowed the determination of the special relationship, recently pointed out by Corker et al., between the octahedral strain (z) and the tilt angle (w) in the ferroelectric low temperature phase (FL) of PZT. The strain-tilt coupling coefficient has been found to decrease linearly with Ti content and the composition at which z and w de-couple to be of x=0.30.