Relaxor ferroelectric

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Relaxor ferroelectrics are ferroelectric materials that exhibit high electrostriction. As of 2015, although they have been studied for over fifty years, [1] the mechanism for this effect is still not completely understood, and is the subject of continuing research. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Examples of relaxor ferroelectrics include:

Applications

Relaxor Ferroelectric materials find application in high efficiency energy storage and conversion as they have high dielectric constants, orders-of-magnitude higher than those of conventional ferroelectric materials. Like conventional ferroelectrics, Relaxor Ferroelectrics show permanent dipole moment in domains. However, these domains are on the nano-length scale, unlike conventional ferroelectrics domains that are generally on the micro-length scale, and take less energy to align. Consequently, Relaxor Ferroelectrics have very high specific capacitance and have thus generated interest in the fields of energy storage. [10] Furthermore, due to their slim hysteresis curve with high saturated polarization and low remnant polarization, Relaxor ferroelectrics have high discharge energy density and high discharge rates. BT-BZNT Multilayer Energy Storage Ceramic Capacitors (MLESCC) were experimentally determined to have very high efficiency(>80%) and stable thermal properties over a wide temperature range. [12]

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In electromagnetism, a dielectric is an electrical insulator that can be polarised by an applied electric field. When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material as they do in an electrical conductor, because they have no loosely bound, or free, electrons that may drift through the material, but instead they shift, only slightly, from their average equilibrium positions, causing dielectric polarisation. Because of dielectric polarisation, positive charges are displaced in the direction of the field and negative charges shift in the direction opposite to the field. This creates an internal electric field that reduces the overall field within the dielectric itself. If a dielectric is composed of weakly bonded molecules, those molecules not only become polarised, but also reorient so that their symmetry axes align to the field.

Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the additional property that their natural electrical polarization is reversible. The term is used in analogy to ferromagnetism, in which a material exhibits a permanent magnetic moment. Ferromagnetism was already known when ferroelectricity was discovered in 1920 in Rochelle salt by Joseph Valasek. Thus, the prefix ferro, meaning iron, was used to describe the property despite the fact that most ferroelectric materials do not contain iron. Materials that are both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic are known as multiferroics.

In chemistry, titanate usually refers to inorganic compounds composed of titanium oxides, or oxides containing the titanium element. Together with niobate, titanate salts form the Perovskite group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strontium titanate</span> Chemical compound

Strontium titanate is an oxide of strontium and titanium with the chemical formula SrTiO3. At room temperature, it is a centrosymmetric paraelectric material with a perovskite structure. At low temperatures it approaches a ferroelectric phase transition with a very large dielectric constant ~104 but remains paraelectric down to the lowest temperatures measured as a result of quantum fluctuations, making it a quantum paraelectric. It was long thought to be a wholly artificial material, until 1982 when its natural counterpart—discovered in Siberia and named tausonite—was recognised by the IMA. Tausonite remains an extremely rare mineral in nature, occurring as very tiny crystals. Its most important application has been in its synthesized form wherein it is occasionally encountered as a diamond simulant, in precision optics, in varistors, and in advanced ceramics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lead zirconate titanate</span> Chemical compound

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barium titanate</span> Chemical compound

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References

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