Ferroelectric switching and fatigue in Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3-based ceramics.

Polarization switching process was investigated in Nb- or Fe-doped Pb(Zr1-xTix)O-3 bulk ceramics, with x=0.40 and 0.47. High sinusoidal electric field at low frequency was applied to the samples. The results revealed a strong dependence with the kind of doping. At the virgin state, donor-doped materials present higher values of remanent and saturation polarizations than acceptor-doped. Nb-doped materials shown a normal hysteresis loop while Fe-doped materials shown a strong pinching loop. We Studied the variation of the remanent polarization and coercive field with the number of hysteresis loops previously performed. In donor-doped samples, it is shown that fatigue affects more to materials at morphotropic phase boundary than at rhombohedral single phase, Acceptor-doped samples showed the expected depinning process. In this case, complex defect reorientation produces a quick elimination of pinching loop.