Ferroelectric aging effects and large recoverable electrostrain in ceria-doped BaTiO ₃ ceramics

Ferroelectric aging is a phenomenon that is generally observed in acceptor-doped ferroelectrics and usually produces a large recoverable electrostrain. In this work, using an oxide ionic conducting material, a Gd-modified ceria solution (GDC), as a dopant, we find that GDC-doped BaTiO ₃ ceramics exhibit ferroelectric aging behaviors at room temperature. These ceramics show double polarization hysteresis (P-E) loops and sprout-shaped recoverable strain vs electric field (S-E) curves. GDC-doped BT ceramic (3 mol%) produces a large recoverable electrostrain of 0.12% at 3 kV/cm. The large ions of Ce ³⁺ and Gd ³⁺ , which have small electronegativity, lead to the high mobility of oxygen vacancies and a rapid symmetry conformation for short range ordering (SC-SRO) of points defects, which appear as fast aging effects and a large electrostrain in GDC-doped BT ceramics at room temperature.