Polar nanodomains and local ferroelectric phenomena in relaxor lead lanthanum zirconate titanate ceramics

Transparent Pb0.9125La0.0975(Zr0.65Ti0.35)0.976O3 ceramics (conventionally abbreviated as PLZT 9.75/65/35) is a typical relaxor characterized by the absence of the ferroelectric order at the macroscopic scale. In this letter, we report on the observation of complex polar structures on the surface of this material via piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). The irregular polarization patterns are associated with the formation of a glassy state, where random electric fields destroy the long-range ferroelectric order. The measure of the disorder, the correlation length of ∼50nm, was directly deduced from the PFM images. Local poling of relaxor ceramics resulted in the formation of a stable micron-size domain that could be continuously switched under varying dc bias (local relaxor-ferroelectric phase transition). Fractal analysis was applied to analyze the origin of local order in PLZT.