Zhang Nan, Yokota Hiroko, Glazer A M, Thomas P A
Department of Physics, Oxford University, Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3PU, England.
Acta Crystallogr B. 2011 Dec;67(Pt 6):461-6. doi: 10.1107/S010876811103936X. Epub 2011 Nov 17.
High-resolution neutron diffraction on the important piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) has found that oxygen disorder exists well into the cubic phase. This unexpected result shows that within this phase there persists a remnant of the tilted oxygen octahedra present within the room-temperature ferroelectric phase. The result is that the cubic phase, far from having a simple crystal structure, exhibits a more complex local structure than had hitherto been thought.
