Field stability of piezoelectric shear properties in PIN-PMN-PT crystals under large drive field

The coercive fields (E_C) of Pb(In_0.5Nb_0.5)O₃- Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PIN-PMN-PT) ternary single crystals were found to be 5 kV/cm, double the value of binary Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMNT) crystals, further increased to 6 to 9 kV/cm using Mn modifications. In addition to an increased E_C, the acceptor modification resulted in the developed internal bias (E_int), on the order of ~1 kV/cm. The piezoelectric shear properties of unmodified and Mn-modified PIN-PMN-PT crystals with various domain configurations were investigated. The shear piezoelectric coefficients and electromechanical coupling factors for different domain configurations were found to be >;2000 pC/N and >;0.85, respectively, with slightly reduced properties observed in Mn-modified tetragonal crystals. Fatigue/cycling tests performed on shearmode samples as a function of ac drive field level demonstrated that the allowable ac field levels (the maximum applied ac field before the occurrence of depolarization) were only ~2 kV/cm for unmodified crystals, less than half of their coercive field. Allowable ac drive levels were on the order of 4 to 6 kV/cm for Mn-modified crystals with rhombohedral/orthorhombic phase, further increased to 5 to 8 kV/cm in tetragonal crystals, because of their higher coercive fields. It is of particular interest that the allowable ac drive field level for Mn-modified crystals was found to be ≥60% of their coercive fields, because of the developed E_int, induced by the acceptor-oxygen vacancy defect dipoles.