The Three Characteristic Temperatures of Relaxor Dynamics and Their Meaning

Abstract

In this report, we compare the temperature evolution of several physical properties of the relaxor systems, PZN, PMN and KTN. We show that three rather than two characteristic temperatures can be identified, T _B , T* and T _f , and discuss their meaning in light of dielectric, Raman and neutron scattering experimental results.

Ackowledgments

I am extremely grateful to Drs. Z.G. Ye, A.K. Levstik and D. Viehland for permission to reproduce their dielectric results. I am also grateful to Prof. T. Egami for providing references to his work. Above all, I wish to thank Dr. L.A. Boatner from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the very high quality KTN crystals that he supplied to us over the years, and without which none of my study of relaxors would have been possible. Last but not least, I am indebted to the US Department of Energy for their generous support of this work through grant DE-FG02-06ER46318.