High-field properties of PMN-PT single crystals

Electric properties of relaxor ferroelectric Pb(Mg_1/3Nb _2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMN-PT) single crystals near the rhombohedral-tetragonal transition under high-field phase boundary were studied. The single crystals in the ⟨001⟩ direction exhibited a remanent polarization of 30 μC/cm², coercive field of 3.5 kV/cm and switchable polarization of 51 μC/cm ² at 9 kV/cm. The polarization-temperature dependence of the crystals indicated a reduction of 5% in the remanent polarization and 3.2% in switchable polarization at 80°C. The remanent polarization decreased to 5 μC/cm² at 146°C (T_m). However the switchable polarization fell to zero at that temperature. A loss of 12% in the polarization was observed in the switching cycles up to 2.5×10⁸ reversals under bipolar pulse of 12 kV/cm. On the other hand, the crystals have a resistivity of 1.6×10⁹ Ω-cm at 100°C and with a electric field of 10 kV/cm. These results are favorable to applications for device design of the PMN-PT crystals