Dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the Cr3+ doped PZN single crystals

Single crystals of 0.5 mol% Cr2O3 doped Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 [PZN] have been grown by flux method. The dielectric and the piezoelectric properties have been investigated for <001> oriented single crystals and the results are compared with the pure PZN single crystal. The dielectric permittivity, remnant polarization and d33 values are found to decrease on doping with chromium. On the contrary, the coercive field and quality factor (Qm) increases. All these results provide an evidence of the piezo-hardening effect, which can be attributed to the incorporation of the Cr3+ ion at the Nb5+ site rather than the Zn2+ sites. The relaxational behaviour of PZN is not much affected by doping chromium.