Detection of phase transitions in sodium bismuth titanate-barium titanate single crystals by acoustic emission

Acoustic emission measurements are combined with strain, dielectric, and polarization measurements to detect phase transitions in 0.94Na(0.5)Bi(0.5)TiO(3)-0.06BaTiO(3) single crystals during thermal cycling as well as electric field cycling at both room temperature and 140 degrees C. All phase transitions known from the literature (cubic <-> tetragonal <-> trigonal I <-> trigonal II) are determined to be of first order, and the existence of the ferroelectric trigonal II phase at room temperature and its transformation into an antiferroelectric phase during heating above 130 degrees C is established. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.