Nanoscale phase transformations in relaxor-ferroelectric lead scandium tantalate and lead scandium niobate

Abstract

Abstract Structural transformations that take place on cooling down in Pb-based relaxor ferroelectrics are investigated on the basis of polarized Raman spectroscopy and far infrared ellipsometry applied on single-crystal samples of PbSc0.5Ta0.5O3 (PST) and PbSc0.5Nb0.5O3 (PSN). The temperature evolution of phonon anomalies reveals different preferred ferroic species in PST and PSN. Near the dielectric constant maximum cooperative shifts of Pb atoms in respect to the oxygen sheets perpendicular to the cubic body diagonal occur in larger spatial regions for PST than for PSN. On cooling down this structural modification becomes preferential for PST, thus giving rise to highly anisotropic ferroelectric domains. In PSN the temperature decrease favours B-cation deviations from the BO6-octahedral centres, which leads to formation of small-sized polar clusters distributed in the isotropic matrix. Near 180 K PST undergoes an additional phase transition that involves reduction of the rotation symmetry. The nanoscale phase transformations in PST are affected by the presence of point defects rather than by the degree of long-range B-site ordering. The spectroscopic data give some evidence that in PSN additional multiplication of the unit cell takes place, besides the common perovskite-structure doubling Pm3̅m – Fm3̅m.