A monoclinic ferroelectric phase in the pb(zr1-xtix)o3 solid solution

TLDR: A previously unreported ferroelectric phase has been discovered in a highly homogeneous sample of PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3 by high-resolution synchrotron x-ray powder diffraction measurements as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: A previously unreported ferroelectric phase has been discovered in a highly homogeneous sample of PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3 by high-resolution synchrotron x-ray powder diffraction measurements. At ambient temperature the sample has tetragonal symmetry (at=4.037 A, ct=4.138 A), and transforms below ∼250 K into a phase which, unexpectedly, has monoclinic symmetry (am=5.717 A, bm=5.703 A, cm=4.143 A, β=90.53°, at 20 K). The intensity data strongly indicate that the polar axis lies in the monoclinic ac plane close to the pseudocubic [111] direction, which would be an example of the species m3m(12)A2Fm predicted on symmetry grounds by Shuvalov.