Preparation and characterization of translucent PLZT8/65/35 ceramics from nano-sized powders produced by a high-energy ball-milling process

Nano-sized lead lanthanum zirconate titanate [(Pb0.92La0.08)(Zr0.65Ti0.35)0.98O3 or PLZT8/65/35] powders were prepared by milling the corresponding oxide mixture for 36 h in air at room temperature via a high-energy ball-milling process. PLZT8/65/35 ceramics were obtained using the produced powders by sintering at temperatures ranging from 900–1000°C. The PLZT ceramics sintered at 1000°C for 4 h had a density of 99.2% of the theoretical density, an average grain size of 1.8 μm, a dielectric constant of 2865, and a dielectric loss of 0.04, and a remnant polarization of 18.4 μC/cm2 and coercive field of 9.1 kV/cm. Translucent PLZT ceramics were obtained by annealing the sintered PLZT samples via a repeated annealing process with every annealing at 1125°C for 6 h. A Transmittance of 40% at 550 nm was achieved for the translucent PLZT samples.