Effects of defect dipoles on tunable dielectric response in relaxor ferroelectric ceramics

Tunable dielectric materials have drawn much attention due to their wide applications including capacitors and microwave tunable devices. Ferroelectrics materials have special spontaneous polarization which can be reversibly switched by an external electric field. Therefore, tunable dielectric constant can be easily achieved in ferroelectrics. However, the study of nonlinear dielectric response induced by defect dipoles is rarely concerned. Here, we report the effects of defect dipoles on tunable dielectric response under alternative current (AC) and direct current (DC) electric field in defect dipoles introduced Pb(Lu1/2Nb1/2)O-3-PbTiO(3)ceramics. A modified Rayleigh model is proposed to successfully characterize dielectric nonlinearity and reveals the interaction between domain walls and defect dipoles. The defect dipoles had more sensitive effect on dielectric response under AC field than that of defect dipoles-free samples. The drop of intrinsic dielectric contribution under AC field results from the detriment effect of defect dipoles. The irreversible contribution is altered by the movements of defect dipoles under AC field, subsequently inducing the nonlinearity of dielectric response. Samples with defect dipoles have larger tunable scope of dielectric properties than that of defect dipoles-free samples. The present work discovers the potential of application of defect dipoles-tuned dielectric response ferroelectrics in devices which requires both high AC and DC biases, and help to better understand the complex dielectric response of ferroelectrics.