Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme
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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper
DF 9: Electric, Electromechanical and Optical Properties I
DF 9.1: Invited Talk
Thursday, March 29, 2007, 10:00–10:40, H48
Electric Field Induced Critical Points and Electromechanical Response in Relaxor Ferroelectrics — •Zdravko Kutnjak1, Robert Blinc1, Jan Petzelt2, and Stanislav Kamba2 — 1Jozef Stefan Iinstitute, Ljubljana, Slovenia — 2Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
The giant electromechanical response in ferroelectric relaxors such as Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) is of great importance for a number of ultrasonic and medical applications as well as in telecommunications. Despite intensive research the origin of this effect is however still not fully understood.
On the basis of dielectric, heat capacity, and piezoelectric investigations on PMN-PT crystals of various PT compositions we show the existence of a line of critical points for paraelectric to ferroelectric transformation in the composition–temperature–electric field (x-T-E) phase diagram [1]. This line effectively terminates a surface of first order transitions. Above this line supercritical evolution has been observed.
On approaching the critical point both the enthalpy cost to induce the intermediate monoclinic states decrease significantly. It is shown that the critical fluctuations in the proximity of the critical points are directly responsible of the observed enhancement of the electromechanical response in PMN-PT system [1]. Preliminary results of critical phenomena observed in other relaxor systems will be presented [2].
[1] Z. Kutnjak, R. Blinc, J. Petzelt, Nature vol. 441, 956 (2006)
[2] W. Kleemann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. vol. 97, 065702 (2006)