Bipolar electric fatigue behaviour as a function of field strength in antiferroelectric (Pb, Ba, La)(Zr, Sn, Ti)O3 ceramics

The bipolar electric fatigue behaviour of antiferroelectric ceramics with the composition of Pb0.88Ba0.10La0.02(Zr0.55Sn0.35Ti0.10) O-3 was investigated under various cycling fields. The material exhibits a degradation in the maximum field induced strain, a diffuse AFE-FE phase transition and an enhancement in the diffusion character of the FE-AFE phase transition due to electric cycling. Those variations increase with cycle number, indicating a logarithmic fatigue up to 10(8) cycles. There is no indication for the variations to be recovered, and the symmetry of the negative and positive parts of the strain hysteresis loops still remains. Higher cycling field results in a stronger deterioration of the maximum field induced strain and a larger extent of diffusion in AFE-FE and FE-AFE phase transitions. The normalized maximum strain shows nearly the same scale of degradation when the materials are cycled at various electric fields. After a heat treatment at 500degreesC for 1 h, the variations in the AFE-FE and FE-AFE phase transition due to cycling disappear, whereas the maximum strain resumes almost to its original value. Electrochemical variations are considered to contribute to the main fatigue mechanism for the material under investigation. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.