A modified Rietveld method to model highly anisotropic ceramics

High energy X-ray diffraction was employed to probe the complex constitutive behavior of a polycrystalline ferroelectric material in various sample orientations. Pb(Zn,Nb)O3–Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZN–PZT) ceramics were subjected to a cyclic bipolar electric field while diffraction patterns were taken. Using transmission geometry and a two-dimensional detector, lattice strain and texture evolution (domain switching) were measured in multiple sample directions simultaneously. In addition, texture analysis suggests that non-180° domain switching is coupled with lattice strain evolution during uniaxial electrical loading. As a result of this material’s high strain anisotropy, the full-pattern Rietveld method was inadequate to analyze the diffraction data. Instead, a modified Rietveld method, which includes an elastic anisotropy term, yielded significant improvements in the data analysis results.