Relaxor ferroelectrics near the morphotropic phase boundary were prepared by pressureless sintering at various temperatures in order to study the influence of grain size on phase composition and electrical properties. Investigations of the microstructure indicate an increase in grain size from 0.5to3.7μm when the sintering temperature is increased from 1050to1290°C. The corresponding phase composition is changed from predominantly rhombohedral for small grain sizes to more than 80% tetragonal for larger grain sizes. Low-voltage measurements of poled and unpoled samples correlate well with the x-ray diffraction results. An increase of the permittivity after poling is found for samples with a high tetragonal phase content, while samples with a predominantly rhombohedral composition show a slight decrease. The remanent polarization as well as uni- and bipolar strain increase with increasing sintering temperature by a factor larger than 2, whereas the coercive field EC remains nearly constant for all sintering conditions.
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