The origin of antiferroelectricity in PbZrO3

A. K. Tagantsev, K. Vaideeswaran, S. B. Vakhrushev, A. V. Filimonov, R. G. Burkovsky (), A. Shaganov, D. Andronikova, A. I. Rudskoy, A. Q. R. Baron, H. Uchiyama, D. Chernyshov, A. Bosak, Z. Ujma, K. Roleder, A. Majchrowski, J.-H. Ko and N. Setter
Additional contact information
A. K. Tagantsev: Ceramics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
K. Vaideeswaran: Ceramics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
S. B. Vakhrushev: Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, 26 Politekhnicheskaya, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia
A. V. Filimonov: St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 29 Politekhnicheskaya, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
R. G. Burkovsky: St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 29 Politekhnicheskaya, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
A. Shaganov: St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 29 Politekhnicheskaya, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
D. Andronikova: St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 29 Politekhnicheskaya, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
A. I. Rudskoy: St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 29 Politekhnicheskaya, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
A. Q. R. Baron: SPring-8, RIKEN and JASRI, 1-1-1 Kouto
H. Uchiyama: SPring-8, RIKEN and JASRI, 1-1-1 Kouto
D. Chernyshov: Swiss-Norwegian Beamlines, ESRF, BP 220
A. Bosak: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220
Z. Ujma: Institute of Physics, University of Silesia, ul. Uniwersytecka 4, 40-007 Katowice, Poland
K. Roleder: Institute of Physics, University of Silesia, ul. Uniwersytecka 4, 40-007 Katowice, Poland
A. Majchrowski: Institute of Applied Physics, Military University of Technology, ul. Kaliskiego 2
J.-H. Ko: Hallym University, 39 Hallymdaehakgil
N. Setter: Ceramics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Antiferroelectrics are essential ingredients for the widely applied piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials: the most common ferroelectric, lead zirconate titanate is an alloy of the ferroelectric lead titanate and the antiferroelectric lead zirconate. Antiferroelectrics themselves are useful in large digital displacement transducers and energy-storage capacitors. Despite their technological importance, the reason why materials become antiferroelectric has remained allusive since their first discovery. Here we report the results of a study on the lattice dynamics of the antiferroelectric lead zirconate using inelastic and diffuse X-ray scattering techniques and the Brillouin light scattering. The analysis of the results reveals that the antiferroelectric state is a ‘missed’ incommensurate phase, and that the paraelectric to antiferroelectric phase transition is driven by the softening of a single lattice mode via flexoelectric coupling. These findings resolve the mystery of the origin of antiferroelectricity in lead zirconate and suggest an approach to the treatment of complex phase transitions in ferroics.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3229 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3229

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3229

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().