Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.101, No.5, 1957-1966, 2018
CaTiO3 induced ferroelectric phase coexistence and low temperature dielectric relaxation in BaTiO3-BaZrO3 ceramics
The series of 0.86BaTiO(3)-(0.14-x)BaZrO3-xCaTiO(3) (abbreviated as BT-BZ-xCT) ceramics with 0.03x0.11 were studied to obtain high piezoelectric properties. Rietveld refinement analysis indicated that the BT-BZ-CT compositions follow a gradual rhombohedral (R)orthorhombic (O)+RO+tetragonal (T)T phase transformation with increasing x. Clear evidence of the series of ferroelectric phase transitions was also found in the dielectric results. The R-O and O-T transition temperature shifted close to ambient temperature, while the Curie temperature slightly increased with increasing x. In addition to the dielectric loss peaks associated with the structural phase transitions, a broad low-temperature dielectric loss peak was detected in the R phase at T=90-150K. This dielectric relaxation was attributed to the domain wall freezing and fits well to the Vogel-Fulcher model with activation energy E-a approximate to 60-300meV and freezing temperature T-VF approximate to 75-140K. High piezoelectric strain coefficient (d(33)*) of about 1030pm/V at 10kV was achieved at x=0.07, and a high Curie temperature (T-C) was maintained at about 375K.