Effects of Annealing on Ferroelectric, Optical and Electrically Controlled Light Scattering Properties of PLZT Transparent Ceramics

PLZT (X/70/30) ceramics with different La contents (X=7.45, 7.54, 7.63 mole%) were fabricated by hot-press sintering techniques. The effects of annealing on ferroelectric, optical and electrically controlled light scattering properties of PLZT transparent ceramics were examined and analyzed. The XRD patterns indicated that all the samples were crystallized into a pure perovskite phase without the second phase. The SEM exhibited fully dense, uniform microstructures with well-developed grains. The annealing treatment weakened the degree of squareness of the ferroelectric hysteresis loop, and even the anti-ferroelectric phase occurred as the La content increasing to X=7.63. The remnant polarization (Pr) and coercive electric field (Ec) decreased with the annealing treatment for all samples. The slow annealing treatment resulted in the lager increase of both transmittance and contrast ratio than those of the rapid annealing treatment at λ=632.8nm. The electrically controlled light scattering properties were obviously enhanced by the annealing treatment. Especially, the PLZT (7.63/70/30) ceramics exhibited the different electrically controlled light scattering performance which indicated it could hold high transmittance and symmetry in a wide electric field range with the slow annealing treatment.