Investigations of co-existence region in lead zirconate-titanate solid solutions: X-ray diffraction studies

Compositions with varying Zr/Ti ratio in: xPbZrO3–yPbTiO3–zPb(Fe1/5, Ni1/5, Sb3/5)O3 such that (x+y+z)=100% and at constant z=10% were prepared by the conventional method of thermal synthesis of mixed-oxides. The characterization of these PZT ceramics was carried out with XRD and SEM. X-ray diffraction is presented to demonstrate the co-existence of the tetragonal and rhombohedral phases. In the present work it is shown that the tetragonal structure persists up to x=43, while the rhombohedral structure appears at x=46. These results suggest that the morphotropic phase boundary lies in the range 43