Members of Lanthanide Family as Dopants in Relaxor PLZT Ceramics

Abstract

Nowadays, the research and industrial interests about the luminescent properties of lanthanide family doped PLZT (lanthanum modified lead titanate zirconate) ceramics are increasing. Nevertheless, the improvement of other properties in these lanthanide doped systems, such as electro-optic and dielectric, were not much explored. This paper briefly discusses dielectric properties, the relaxor like behavior, and the extent of the ferroelectric/relaxor phases as a function of the lanthanide dopant. The enhanced relaxor properties were found for some compositions, and the lanthanide family doping process is proposed as an effective approach to increase the temperature stability of the relaxor-like phases.

Keywords:

• PLZT
• dielectric properties
• ferroelectric properties

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge FAPESP (contract number 04/13751-5) for the financial support and Mr. José Francisco Picon for the technical support. RYG and ASB acknowledge the support of US NSF under the grant number 0844081.