No abstract

Lead zirconate titanate ceramics, PZT, is a perovskite material that shows a great piezoelectric/ferroelectic effect. This phenomenon is caused by the shift of Ti 4+ or Zr 4+ ion relative to neighboring atoms. Such movement results in the change of the spontaneous polarization direction known as domain switching. Microscopically, the switching behavior due to the movement of the ions can be analyzed by using Xray absorption near-edge structure (XANES). The aim of this project is to elicit the relationship between switching behavior and local/unit cell distortion in PZT ceramic under the application of electric field employing X-ray absorption technique. In this experiment, PZT sample was subjected to 0.7 kV/mm and 1.4 kV/mm respectively. The Ti K-edge X-ray absorption spectra reflect the change of the local structure of the unit cell of PZT specimens before and after electrical static loading. The result shows that the XANES spectra intensity changes when the electrical load was applied. This can be caused by the shift of Ti atoms in the unit cells. The experiment result is in agreement with the simulation result obtained from ATOMS (version 2.50) and FEFF (version 8.20) software.