Rayleigh type behavior of the Young’s modulus of unpoled ferroelectric ceramics and its dependence on temperature

The dependence on stress of the low frequency Young’s modulus and mechanical losses of unpoled ferroelectric ceramics has been studied as a function of temperature. The Young’s modulus of unpoled Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 ~PZT! showed a Rayleigh type dependence, analogous to the one already described for the longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient. This has been associated to ferroelectric/ ferroelastic domain wall movements across, and their pinning/depinning on, randomly distributed defects. The Rayleigh coefficient was found to increase with temperature. The activation energy of the Rayleigh process was obtained, which must be related to the pinning energy. The Young’s modulus of Mn doped 0.65Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 – 0.35PbTiO3 showed no stress dependence. © 2003 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1614414#