Elastic aging from coexistence and transformations of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric states in PZT

Materials undergoing antiferroelectric/ferroelectric (AFE/FE) transitions are studied for possible applications that exploit the large volume, charge, and entropy differences between the two states, such as electrocaloric cooling, energy storage, and electromechanical actuators. Though certain compositions of PbZr1-xTixO3 codoped with La and Sn may withstand millions of electrically induced AFE/FE cycles, in other cases few thermally induced cycles and room temperature aging may cause noticeable changes in the material properties. This is particularly evident in the elastic moduli, which at room temperature can become as much as four times softer. In order to get more insight into the mechanisms involved in such elastic aging and full recovering with mild annealing at 600–800 K, the effect of La doping on PbZr0.954Ti0.046O3 is studied with anelastic measurements. Complete suppression of the time dependent phenomena is found after the transformation of the intermediate FE phase into incommensurate AFE by 2% La doping. This is discussed in terms of disappearance of the stress and electric fields at the FE/AFE interfaces, in the light of the thermally activated anelastic relaxation processes that are observed at high temperature and are due to mobile defects, presumably O vacancies.