Study on the switching field induced antiferroelectric to ferroelectric phase transition in Nb modified Pb(Zr,Sn,Ti)O₃

This work studied the effect of composition and temperature on the switching electric field induced antiferroelectric to ferroelectric phase transition in Nb modified Pb(Zr,Sn,Ti)O₃ antiferroelectric ceramics, measured the relation between switching field and composition y(Ti), both the antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase boundaries before and after poling in Pb_0.99Nb_0.02((Zr_0.80Sn_0.20) _1-yTi_y)_0.98O₃ family. Measurement results showed that the switching field strength of some y(Ti) was dependent on the change from that of antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase boundary. The backward switching field E_A was fixed while the forward switching field E_F and hysteresis ΔE were dropped when increasing temperature. This phenomenon indicated that temperature increase is beneficial to the reduction of strain energy so as to make the antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transition easier. Hence we could make use of electric polarization by heating to lower the electric field.