Ferroelastic and strain glass transition in (1-x)(Bi_0.5Na_0.5)TiO₃-xBaTiO₃ solid solution

¹ Multi-disciplinary Materials Research Center, Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University - Xi'an 710054, China
² Ferroic Physics Group, National Institute for Materials Science - Tsukuba 305-0047, Ibaraki, Japan

^(a) yaodongy@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
^(b) ren.xiaobing@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Received: 15 June 2012
Accepted: 6 September 2012

Abstract

The electrical and structure behaviors are somehow deviated in (1-x)(Bi_0.5Na_0.5)TiO₃-xBaTiO₃ (BNT-xBT), which is unusual for regular ferroelectrics whose structure transition is always accompanied with the ferroelectric one. To understand this problem, a dynamic ferroelastic measurement was used as a new way (besides ferroelectric and structure views) to determine its transition. It is found that for x < 5%, they showed a typical ferroelastic phase transition, whereas it was a strain glass transition for 5% < x < 8% (previously regarded as morphotropic phase boundary region). The new ferroelastic characterization provides a unique aspect to understand complex ferroelectric materials, such as BNT-xBT.