Effect of nickel electroplating on the electrical properties of PMZNT relaxor ferroelectrics

Effect of nickel electroplating on insulation resistance and ferroelectricity of PMN-based relaxor ferroelectrics was investigated by resistivity and hysteresis measurements. Annealing experiments on the degraded specimens in air and argon at high temperature were also conducted. It was found that the insulation resistivity of the specimens and the hysteresis characteristic deteriorated after electroplating. Annealing experiments indicated that the degraded samples can recover totally through air annealing above 600 °C for 1 h while the argon annealing had almost no improvement on the degradation. It suggested that some metal elements in the PMN-based ferroelectrics may be reduced by hydrogen produced during electroplating thereby, oxygen vacancies and free electrons were generated, which led to the electrical degradation of the ceramics.