Review of the most common relaxor ferroelectrics and their applications

Abstract

Relaxor ferroelectrics were discovered almost 50 years ago among the complex oxides with perovskite structure. In recent years, this field of research has experienced a revival of interest. The dielectric relaxation phenomenon in ferroelectric materials reflects the delay in the frequency response of a group of dipoles when submitted to an external applied field. Also, relaxor ferroelectrics show a high strain response and are actively being investigated for transducers and dielectric applications. The other promising field for relaxor applications is piezoelectric transducers and multilayer ceramic capacitors. This review presents properties and applications some of the most common relaxors such as PMN (Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3, PLZT (Pb1-αxLax(Zr1-αyTiy)1-αx/4O3), PZN (Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 and some less investigated such as Ba-based layered perovskites (BaBi4Ti4O15, BaBi2Ta2O9, and BaBi2Nb2O9).