Elias Castel et al 2009 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21 452201 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/21/45/452201
Elias Castel, Michaël Josse, Dominique Michau and Mario Maglione1
Show affiliationsRelaxors are very interesting materials but most of the time they are restricted to perovskite materials and thus their flexibility is limited. We have previously shown that tetragonal tungsten bronze (TTB) niobate Ba2PrFeNb4O15 was a relaxor below 170 K and that Ba2NdFeNb4O15 displays a ferroelectric behavior with a TC = 323 K. On scanning the whole solid solution Ba2PrxNd1−xFeNb4O15 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.8 and 1), we demonstrate here a continuous crossover between these end member behaviors with a coexistence of ferroelectricity and relaxor in the intermediate range. This tunability is ascribed to the peculiar structure of the TTB networks which is more open than the classical perovskites. This allows for the coexistence of long range and short range orders and thus opens up the range of relaxor materials.
77.80.Bh Phase transitions and Curie point
77.84.Dy Niobates, titanates, tantalates, PZT ceramics, etc.
Issue 45 (11 November 2009)
Received 2 July 2009, in final form 27 September 2009
Published 9 October 2009
Elias Castel et al 2009 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21 452201
Kenneth Hong and Edward Teo 2005 Class. Quantum Grav. 22 109