Macroscopic lamellar heterophase pattern in Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ single crystals

Authors

I. Rafalovskyi, M. Guennou, I. Gregora, and J. Hlinka

Reference

Physical Review B, vol. 93, no. 6, art no. 064110, 2016

Description

The paper describes lamellar heterostructures, observed in (1−x)Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃−xPbTiO₃ (PMN-xPT) single crystals with x=0.32. These lamellas are naturally formed in single crystals cooled under bias electric field applied along [001]pc and then zero-field heated to the vicinity of the so-called depoling temperature T_RT, but similar structures were also encountered at ambient conditions. The polarization dependence of the Raman scattering intensities was employed to demonstrate that these lamellar structures are composed of tetragonal-like and rhombohedral-like layers extending over macroscopic (mm) lengths. The properties and interest of these macroscopic heterophase interfaces are discussed.

Link

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.064110