Characterization of the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of Er3+ and Yb3+ co-doped PMN-0.3 PT ceramics

Abstract

In today's growing semiconductor and electronic economy, PMN-PT is one of the most important ferroelectric materials due to its excellent physical properties, crucial for the development of sensors, actuators, and ultrasonic transducers. One of the frontiers of property enhancement for ferroelectric materials is through rare-earth co-doping. Hence, this study focuses on investigating the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of Er-Yb co-doped PMN-0.3 PT ceramic produced by the traditional sintering technique. The synthesized PMN-0.3 PT-Er-Yb powder showed a distorted perovskite structure with tetragonal symmetry. For dielectric properties, T_c of 157 °C and 155 °C was found for pure and RE co-doped compositions, with corresponding ε_max of 15333 and 24300, respectively. For ferroelectric response, P_r of 27.06 μC/cm² and E_c of 3.86 kV/cm were found for the RE co-doped, while the pure composition shows P_r of 14.04 μC/cm² and E_c of 5.44 kV/cm. These physical properties make the RE-doped PMN-PT composition a potential multifunctional material.