Microstructural characteristics and diffuse phase transition behavior of lanthanum-modified lead titanate

Abstract

The introduction of structural disorder into perovskite ferroelectrics leads to the observation of diffuse phase transition behavior. In this paper, the microstructural characteristics and phase transition behavior of lanthanum-modified lead titanate are discussed. It is shown that the diffuse nature of the transition is connected with the appearance of ferroelectric domain structures exhibiting texture on the mesoscopic (≈ 10 run) length scale. The theoretical implications of these results are briefly discussed.