Electric field-induced birefringence in Pb0.94Ba0.06Sc0.5Nb0.5O3 (PBSN-6) solid-solution single crystals

The temperature dependence of birefringence induced by an electric field in PBSN-6 relaxors was studied. It was shown that the birefringence measured under different conditions of applying an electric field reveals a number of features not characteristic of the behavior of birefringence in conventional relaxors, more specifically, additional anomalies observed under sample cooling and heating in an electric field, a decrease in the thermal hysteresis width with an increase in the electric field strength, and the absence of birefringence saturation (impossibility to reach single-domain state of the sample during the experiment duration) at low temperatures in fields of up to 3 kV/cm. The results obtained are attributed to inhomogeneity of the cubic paraelectric relaxor phase caused by the coexistence of various polar regions having different dimensions and properties.