The relaxational properties of compositionally disordered ABO3perovskites

Random lattice disorder produced by chemical substitution in ABO3 perovskites can lead to the formation of dipolar impurities and defects that have a profound influence on the static and dynamic properties of these materials that are the prototypical soft ferroelectric (FE) mode systems. In these highly polarizable host lattices, dipolar entities form polar nanodomains whose size is determined by the dipolar correlation length, rc, of the host and that exhibit dielectric relaxation in an applied ac field. In the very dilute limit (< 0.1at.%) each domain behaves as a non-interacting dipolar entity with a single relaxation time. At higher concentrations of disorder, however, the domains can interact leading to more complex relaxational behaviour. Among the manifestations of such behaviour is the formation of a glass-like relaxor (R) state, or even an ordered FE state for a sufficiently high concentration of overlapping domains.