Densification Behaviour and Structural Properties of Niobium and Lanthanum-doped Lead Zirconate Titanate and Lead Barium Zirconate Ferroelectrics for Low-donor Dopants Concentrations

In this paper we report the densification behaviour and structural properties of niobium and lanthanum-doped lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and lead barium zirconate (PBZ) ferroelectrics for low additive concentrations (0-2%).The PZT materials were calcined at 800 oC and sintered at 1200 oC while the PBZ materials were calcined at 850 oC and sintered at 1250 oC. Densification behaviour revealed that materials with lanthanum or niobium additives of greater than 0.5% for PZT and 0.2% for PBZ achieved complete densification. A strong distortion was observed in lattice parameters for lower dopants in which PBZ doped materials showed higher lattice distortions than PZT doped materials. The grain sizes decreased with increasing dopants concentrations for PZT while it increased with increasing dopants concentrations for PBZ materialsKeywords: Densification; structural; low level donor dopants; ferroelectrics; sintering