Influence of strontium doping on the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of lead zinc niobate-lead zirconate titanate ceramics

The crystal structure, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of pyrochlore-free lead zinc niobate-lead Zirconate titanate ceramics were investigated systematically as a function of Sr doping as well as thermal treatment. The results showed that the remanent polarization (P-r) has decreased significantly with increase in strontium content. After annealing, the value of squareness of hysteresis loop (R-sq) increased from 1.48 to 1.74 for the annealed sample. Furthermore the annealed samples exhibited larger Pr and lower coercive fields (E-c) compared with as-sintered samples. The results indicated that the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties in Sr-modified PZT-PZN were further improved by thermal annealing.