Enhanced breakdown strength and improved ferroelectric properties in lead-containing relaxor ferroelectric ceramics with addition of glass

Relaxor ferroelectrics (RFEs), which possess high maximum polarization (P-max), low remnant polarization (P-r) and coercive field (E-c), are good candidates for the applications in electrostrictive devices. Compared to lead-free RFEs, lead-containing RFEs possess higher P-max, due to the contribution by lead ions. However, relatively low breakdown strength (BDS) in lead-containing RFEs becomes a bottleneck for exploring the electrostrictive properties especially at higher electric field. In this work, we synthesized (1-x)[0.5573Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O-3-0.4427PbTiO(3)]-xBa(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O-3 [(1-x)PMNT-xBZN, x = 0.1725, 0.1925, 02125 and 0.2325] RFE ceramics with addition of Li2O-B2O3-SiO2 glass additives (2 wt%) and studied the BDS and dielectric/ferroelectric properties in detail. It was found that an enhancement of BDS from similar to 120 kV cm(-1) for undoped samples to similar to 160 kV cm(-1) for glass-doped samples. Higher P-max, lower P-r and lower E-c were simultaneously obtained in x = 0.1725, 0.1925 and 02125 compositions, suggesting improved ferroelectric properties. Purely electrostrictive strains with levels from 0.147% to 0.069% were obtained in glass-doped compositions when x increases from 0.1725 to 0.2325 at 30 degrees C, and more than 40% strain response were maintained when temperature is increased to 130 degrees C. This work proves the effectiveness of glass additives to enhance BDS and improve ferroelectric properties in lead-based (1-x)PMNT-xBZN RFE ceramics.