Ferroelectric aging effect in hybrid-doped BaTiO3 ceramics and the associated large recoverable electrostrain

Acceptor doping and donor doping have been known to result in opposite ferroelectric aging effects, but the aging effect of hybrid-doped (acceptor+donor) ferroelectrics has remained unclear. In this letter the authors report the aging effect in Mn3++Nb5+ hybrid-doped BaTiO3 ceramics with acceptor fixed at 1mol% but with donor varied from 0.5to2mol%. The authors found surprisingly that ferroelectric aging existed in all the samples, no matter which of the two, acceptor or donor, was dominant: all the samples showed a double hysteresis loop after aging, but with increasing donor (Nb5+) concentration the coercive field and hysteresis decrease. Meanwhile, a large nonlinear recoverable electrostrain up to 0.17% (due to reversible domain switching) was observed at 3kV∕mm, which exceeded that of acceptor-monodoped ceramics and was about twice the piezoelectric strain of hard lead zirconate titanate. These results demonstrate that hybrid doping is an effective way to enhance the domain-switching-related electrostrain properties. Finally, the aging effect of hybrid-doped ferroelectrics was explained.