IMF2017

Physical properties of ferroelectric materials are usually tailored through introduction of acceptor and donor dopants that may cause different aging phenomena. Thus, it is of great interest to understand the aging behavior in the presence of both acceptors and donors. In this work, we report the aging effect in donor&acceptor doped BaTiO3 ceramics, reflected by the time-dependent change of polarization (P)-electric field (E) hysteresis loops in these cases with different dopant combinations of acceptors (Mn³⁺, Fe³+, Co³⁺) and donors (Nb⁵⁺, La³⁺). The results indicate that the electronegativity and the ionic radius of acceptors, rather than the substitution site of the donors, play the key role in the formation of defect pairs which dominates the aging effect in donor&acceptor doped ferroelectrics. Finally, we propose a unified microscopic mechanism for the observed aging phenomena, and it provides direct instructions for manipulating the aging effect in ferroelectric materials.