Pressure tuning of the morphotropic phase boundary in piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate

Titanium-rich PZT solid solutions were studied under high pressure by neutron and x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and dielectric measurements. The results show that high pressure stabilizes the ferroelectric monoclinic phases, which are proposed to be responsible for the high piezoelectric properties characteristic of the morphotropic composition PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3. Pressure may thus be used to tune the morphotropic phase boundary in the composition-pressure plane to include a wide range of titanium-rich PZT compositions.