Ac conductivity measurements were carried out on polycrystalline samples of a ferrimagnetic spinel (Zn0.44Mn0.56Fe2O4) and a ferroelectric perovskite (Sr0.25Bi4Ti3.25O12.75), in the temperature range 20–160 and 20–660 °C, respectively, and in the frequency range 5 Hz–13 MHz. The impedance response in both cases could be resolved into two contributions, associated with the bulk (grains) and the grain boundaries. An analysis by means of the ac conductivity power law showed evidence of a critical temperature of 132 and 536 °C, for the ferrimagnetic and the ferroelectric samples, respectively, which corresponds to the Curie temperature for each type of material. These results are interpreted in terms of the disorder increase approaching the phase transition.

Lanthanum doping of zirconium rich lead zirconate titanate gives rise to incommensurate, long‐period antiferroelectric structures. The structure of two stacking sequences in this incommensurate phase is determined using quantitative analysis of high‐resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy images, with the lead atom positions located with an exceptional precision of about 6 pm. This allows the estimation of local polarisation variations across the stacking units, and the polarisation varies in an approximately sinusoidal fashion along the stacking direction. The measured peak Pb atom displacements of about 28 pm and peak polarisation values of about 60 μC cm−2 match extremely well to reported values for the commensurate antiferroelectric PbZrO3 phase.

The electrical conductivity behaviour in the paraelectric state has been investigated in lanthanum modified lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) ceramics, considering the universal relaxation law. The contribution of conductive processes to the dielectric response for the low-frequency range was discussed taking into account the oxygen vacancies mechanism. The activation energies for the thermally hopping and conductivity processes were obtained. The results for the frequency dependence of the conductivity suggest at the oxygen vacancy hopping processes, due to relaxations in oxygen vacancy-related dipoles, being mainly responsible for the conduction behaviour in the studied system.

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