High resolution neutron powder diffraction study of the microstrain contribution in Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 ceramics

The high-resolution neutron powder diffraction data collected from Pb(ZrxTi1-x)O3 (x=0.20, 0.52, 0.53 and 0.54) samples between 4 and 900 K were analysed using Rietveld refinement. The high-resolution powder diffractometer (HRPD) at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (ISIS facility) was used. Particular attention was paid to two phase coexistence in the vicinity of the morphotropic phase boundary and to the microstrain contribution. Strongly reflection indices (h,k,l) dependent line broadening was related to a spatial variation of x which probes the sensitivity of different crystal lattice spacings against x.