Strong ferroelectric domain-wall pinning in BiFeO3 ceramics.pdf

JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 108, 074107 2010 Strong ferroelectric domain-wall pinning in BiFeO3 ceramics Tadej Rojac,1,a Marija Kosec,1 Bojan Budic,2 Nava Setter,3 and Dragan Damjanovic3 1 Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 2 National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 3 Ceramics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne 1015, Switzerland Received 19 April 2010; accepted 21 August 2010; published online 7 October 2010 We have studied the polarization-electric-field hysteresis, the dielectric permittivity dispersion, the piezoelectric properties, the electric-field-induced strain, and the interrelations between these properties for bismuth ferrite BiFeO3 ceramics. The results indicate that the domain-wall movement in BiFeO3 is strongly inhibited by charged defects, most probably acceptor-oxygen-vacancy defect pairs. The domain-wall mobility can be considerably increased by preventing the defects from migrating into their stable configuration; this can be achieved by thermal quenching from above the Curie temperature, which freezes the disordered defect state. Similarly, Bi2O3 loss during annealing at high temperatures contributes to depinning of the domain walls and an increase in the remanent polarization. The possible defects causing the pinning effect are analyzed and discussed. A weakening of the