Electric field induced critical points and field gradient by trapped electrons in Li-doped KTa1-xNbxO3 single crystals.

The effects of electric field and trapped electrons on a ferroelectric phase transition of the 5%Li-doped KTa0.74Nb0.26O3 crystals were investigated by micro-Brillouin scattering and dielectric measurements. In micro-Brillouin scattering, the remarkable changes of the central peak (CP) intensity were observed at the paraelectric cubic to ferroelectric tetragonal phase transition. The critical electric fields to induce the paraelectric to ferroelectric phase transition were found to shift to higher values with increasing temperature. From these CP results, we estimated lines of critical points for phase transitions including critical end point (CEP), (E, T)=(1.6 kV/cm, TC-T+3.4°C) in the composition-temperature-electric field (x-T-E) phase diagram. The clear difference of the CEP was observed between Brillouin result at a fixed small area and dielectric result averaged over all area of a sample. It can be caused by the field gradient, which is induced by the trapped electrons. The existence of gradient of electric field was also discussed using the observed result of position dependence of the CP intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]