Mechanically clamped PZT ceramics investigated by First-order reversal curves diagram

The First Order Reversal Curves (FORC) diagrams method was developed for characterizing the switching properties of ferroelectrics. In the present paper, the FORC method was applied for hard Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 ceramics with symmetric and asymmetric clamping. An ideal high-oriented single-crystalline ferroelectric with rectangular P(E) loop would be characterised by a delta-function FORC distribution, while real ferroelectrics and mostly the polycrystalline ceramics show dispersed FORC distributions. All the investigated ceramics show FORC distributions with non-Gaussian shape, slightly elongated along the coercitive axis, meaning a high dispersion of the energy barriers separating the two bi-stable polarizations ±P. The degree of dispersion is enhanced by clamping. The maximum FORC coercivity is located at ~ (1.9-2) MV/m for all the hard ceramics. The FORC cycling experiment causes the reversal of the initial poling and result in a positive/negative bias on the FORC diagrams. According to the observed features, it results that FORC coercivity is more related to the nature of the material, while the bias field is more sensitive to the electrical and mechanical boundary conditions in which the ferroelectric ceramics evolves while switching.