Canonical-glass-like behavior of the polycrystalline relaxor ferroelectric (1–x)PbMg_1/3Nb_2/3O₃–xPbZrO₃: Heat-capacity study

Abstract

A solid solution of lead magnesium niobate (PMN), a relaxor ferroelectric, with lead zirconate (PZ), an antiferroelectric, gives rise to a system that behaves like a relaxor ferroelectric for lower concentrations of PZ, and like a normal ferroelectric above 50% substitution by PZ. This paper reports the heat-capacity behavior of (1 – x)PMN–xPZ for the composition range x = 0.30 to 0.95 and temperature range 300–600 K. It was observed that, although the atomic structure of the material is basically crystalline throughout, with sharp x-ray diffraction peaks, the crossover from normal–ferroelectric behavior to relaxor–ferroelectric behavior (on decreasing x) is accompanied by a matching crossover from crystalline behavior to glassy behavior, as exhibited in the heat-capacity plots. In other words, the heat-capacity curves for the relaxor compositions bear resemblance to those observed for canonical or conventional glasses, with the glass-transition temperature and the continuous step in specific heat changing gradually as a function of the composition parameter x. However, not all properties match those for canonical glasses. For example, soaking for 24 h at a temperature or 10 to 20 K below the mean glass-transition temperature does not raise the specific heat to a value nearly equal to the value in the unfrozen state. Similarly, the glass-transition temperature (for 0.7PMN–0.3PZ) increases, though only marginally (from 337 K to 343 K), when the rate of heating across the transition is increased by a factor of 50 (from 0.1 K per minute to 5 K per min.). Further, the temperature interval ΔT over which most of the glass transition occurs in the relaxor ferroelectric is typically as large as 30–40 K, compared to only about 10 K for canonical glasses.