Despite intensive studies on Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3) (PMN) relaxor, understanding the exact nature of its giant dielectric response and of its physical ground state is a fundamental issue that has remained unresolved for decades. Here, we report a comprehensive study of PMN relaxor crystal, and show that (i) its anomalous dielectric behavior in a broad temperature range results from the reorientation of polarization in the crystal, and (ii) the PMN relaxor is essentially a nanosized ferroelectric material with multiscale inhomogeneities of domain structure in addition to the well-known inhomogeneities of chemical composition and local symmetry. Such inhomogeneities are believed to play a crucial role in producing the huge and enigmatic physical effects in relaxor system, and may be used to design other new systems with giant effects such as a relaxor system.
Polarization measurements reveal that AgNbO3 has an extremely large polarization, which can reach a value of 52μC∕cm2 in polycrystals. Experiments also show that the large internal atom distortion in AgNbO3 is also strongly coupled to the electric field, indicating that high piezoelectric performance can be realized in AgNbO3 system. This finding opens the way to designing a new class of lead-free, high-performance piezoelectric materials based on AgNbO3.
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