Insight into the effects of electron irradiation on Cr-doped PBZT ceramics: From performance changes to physical mechanisms

Cr-doped PZT-based ceramics (PBZT-Cr), widely used in spacecraft electronics due to its defect-engineered radiation hardness governed by tailored point defects, were investigated under 1 MeV electron irradiation. At a fluence of 1 × 10 16 e/cm², irradiation induced significant ionization and atomic displacement effects, increasing lattice micro-strain from 0.24% to 0.33% without obvious changes in crystal structure. With increasing fluence, the piezoelectric, dielectric, and ferroelectric properties progressively degraded, accompanied by enhanced mechanical quality factor. Repolarization experiments revealed that electron irradiation mainly deteriorated polarization reversibility, as evidenced by a stronger reduction in remanent polarization than saturation polarization. Multi-region switching-spectroscopy PFM further demonstrated increased local bias voltage and switching barriers after irradiation. The degradation mechanism was attributed to the synergistic effects of defect-mediated domain-wall pinning, internal bias fields, and lattice distortion, which collectively suppressed domain-wall motion and lattice polarization responses.