Fatigue improvement in modified lead zirconate titanate ceramics through employment of La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 buffer layers

The dielectric, ferroelectric and fatigue properties of modified lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics were investigated in terms of the effect of La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 (LSM) buffer layers. The double sided LSM buffer layers resulted in a lower dielectric loss, a weaker frequency dependence of dielectric constant, a lower leakage current density, and an increase in the saturation polarization. Moreover, it was found that up to 1.4×107 cycle numbers, the Ag||LSM/PZT/LSM||Ag capacitor, with remanent polarization decreased by 55%, was superior to the Ag||PZT||Ag capacitor by 85%. The results indicate that the LSM buffer layers can improve the fatigue endurance of the PZT ceramics with Ag electrodes, mainly because the accumulated charges were compensated at the interface junctions between the LSM buffer layers and the Ag electrodes. We fit the polarization fatigue data using a modified model and calculated the characteristic decay time of oxygen vacancy migration in the Ag||LSM/PZT/LSM||Ag and the Ag||PZT||Ag capacitors, respectively.