Acute and obtuse rhombohedrons in the local structures of relaxor ferroelectric Pb(Mg${}_{1/3}$Nb${}_{2/3}$)O${}_{3}$

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Acute and obtuse rhombohedrons in the local structures of relaxor ferroelectric Pb(Mg $_{1 / 3}$ Nb $_{2 / 3}$ )O $_{3}$

Wen Hu, Kouichi Hayashi, Kenji Ohwada, Jun Chen, Naohisa Happo, Shinya Hosokawa, Masamitu Takahasi, Alexei A. Bokov, and Zuo-Guang Ye

Phys. Rev. B 89, 140103(R) – Published 29 April 2014

Abstract

The local structures around Nb and Pb in the prototypical relaxor ferroelectric Pb(Mg $_{1 / 3}$ Nb $_{2 / 3}$ )O $_{3}$ (PMN) were investigated by x-ray fluorescence holography. The separate atomic images of nearest Pb around Nb revealed acute and obtuse rhombohedral structures of the crystal unit cells. The Pb-Pb correlated images showed a local structure of body-center-like $2 a_{0} \times 2 a_{0} \times 2 a_{0}$ superlattice, proving a rigid three-dimensional network structural model combining the two kinds of rhombohedrons. The Pb atoms in the networks are positionally stable, while the other Pb atoms are fluctuating. This superstructure and the fluctuating Pb and Nb atoms are believed to play an important role in the relaxor behavior of PMN at the atomic level.

Received 17 June 2013
Revised 17 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.89.140103

Authors & Affiliations

Wen Hu^1,*, Kouichi Hayashi^2,†, Kenji Ohwada¹, Jun Chen³, Naohisa Happo⁴, Shinya Hosokawa⁵, Masamitu Takahasi¹, Alexei A. Bokov⁶, and Zuo-Guang Ye^6,‡

¹Quantum Beam Science Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 1-1-1 Koto, Sayo, Hyogo 679-5148, Japan
²Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan
³Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
⁴Graduate School of Information Sciences, Hiroshima City University, Hiroshima 731-3194, Japan
⁵Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan
⁶Department of Chemistry and 4D LABS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6

^*Present address: Toyota Technological Institute, Nagoya, 468-8511, Japan; gemini_huwen@hotmail.com
^†khayashi@imr.tohoku.ac.jp
^‡zye@sfu.ca

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Issue

Vol. 89, Iss. 14 — 1 April 2014

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