Domain structure influence on the piezoelectric properties in AC-poled [001]-cut rhombohedral PIN-PMN-PT single crystals
2Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education and International Center for Dielectric Research, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
Extensively studied lead titanate-based crystals, like (1-x-y)Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–yPb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–xPbTiO3 (PIN-PMN-PT), of compositions close to the morphotropic phase boundary show prominent piezoelectric characteristics. Recently, alternating current poling (ACP) has been employed as a successful domain engineering technique for the enhancement of the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of relaxor-PT ferroelectrics. It was shown that ACP technique profits in a 25% higher piezoelectric coefficient d33 values when applied to [001]-oriented rhombohedral PMN-PT crystals in comparison to the conventional direct current poling (DCP) technique.1
Here we show the investigation results of the domain structure evolution during the polarization reversal in [001]-cut rhombohedral PIN-PMN-PT single crystals.2 We used direct optical imaging and identified the domain structure types participating in switching: (1) cross-like domain structure (CDS) was found to be undesirable for piezoelectric properties; (2) growth of the lens-shaped domains (71°-switching) led to a decrease in CDS fraction. The interaction of the cross-like and lens-shaped domains was proposed as a key mechanism for the improvement of piezoelectric properties. Analysis of the obtained instantaneous optical domain images and their comparison to the switching current shape has revealed the similarity of the field value respective to the switching current maximum and the CDS area fraction. This fact allowed us to propose the current-only analysis as an optimization technique of a pulse number.
The equipment of the Ural Center for Shared Use “Modern Nanotechnology” UrFU was used. The work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (State Task No. FEUZ-2020-0054). This work was supported by the NSFC projects (Grant No. 51761145024), Shaan Xi province Project (Nos. 2017 ktpt-21 and 2018TD-024), and the 111 Project under Grant No. B14040.
1 J. Xu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 182901 (2018).
2 A. Ushakov et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 118, 232901 (2021).
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