Switching Characteristics and High-Temperature Dielectric Relaxation Behaviours of Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)0.91Ti0.09O₃ Single Crystal

Materials (Basel). 2017 Mar 28;10(4):349. doi: 10.3390/ma10040349.

Abstract

This work evaluated the resistance switching characteristics in the (100)-oriented Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)0.91Ti0.09O₃ (PZNT) single crystal. The current hysteresis can be closely related to the ferroelectric polarization and we provided a possible explanation using a model about oxygen vacancies to analyze the mechanism of switching. The obvious frequency dispersion of the relative permittivity signified the relaxer-type behavior of the sample. The value of the relaxation parameter γ = 1.48 was estimated from the linear fit of the modified Curie-Weiss law, indicating the relaxer nature. High-temperature dielectric relaxation behaviors were revealed in the temperature region of 400-650 °C. In addition, under the measuring frequency of 10 kHz, εr was tunable by changing the electric field and the largest tunability of εr reached 14.78%. At room temperature, the high pyroelectric coefficient and detectivity figure of merit were reported.

Keywords: PZNT single crystal; dielectric relaxation; oxygen vacancies; pyroelectric coefficient; switching characteristics.