Surface bond contraction and its effect on the nanometric sized lead zirconate titanate

The grain size effect of lead zirconate titanate PbZr1-xTixO3 (PZT, x greater than or equal to 0.6) caused by surface bond contraction has been investigated by using the Landau-Ginsburg-Devonshire (LGD) phenomenological theory. It has been shown that, due to the surface bond contraction, both the Curie temperature and the spontaneous polarization of tetragonal PZT decrease with decreasing grain size. These effects become more significant when the grain size is in the nanometre range. A dielectric anomaly appears with decreasing grain size, which corresponds to a size dependent phase transformation. The ferroelectric critical size below which a loss of ferroelectricity will happen is estimated from the results obtained.