Low temperature kinetic phase transformation in antiferroelectric Pb_0.97La_0.02(Zr_0.6Sn_0.3Ti_0.1)O3 ceramic

The low temperature dielectric properties of Pb_0.97La_0.02(Zr_0.6Sn_0.3Ti_0.1)O₃ (PLZST) ceramic were studied. In a wide temperature range, PLZST reveals antiferroelectric properties with pronounced P-E double loop hysteresis, indicating field-induced antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric switching. Such switching is reversible within the usual measuring time near room temperature, but the recovery time from the induced ferroelectric back to the antiferroelectric state is strongly temperature dependent, reaching ∼ 0.1 s at 248 K. Further decrease of temperature leads to much faster than Arrhenius growth of that time, which exceeds the reasonable laboratory time scale below 210 K. At as low as 125 K all experimental results (including TEM, x-ray diffraction, and selected area electron diffraction) on zero-field-cooled material suggest that the ground state of the system remains antiferroelectric. We believe that the strongly T-dependent kinetics arise from cooperative freezing of the incommensurate AFE order in the presence of quenched disorder.