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Abstract
Single crystals of Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PIN-PMN-PT) poled along
[001] were investigated by dielectric, x-ray, and polarized light (PLM) and piezo-force
microscopy (PFM) methods. PLM revealed {100} macro-domain plates that formed after
poling, whose size increased on heating between room temperature and a rhombohedral
\rightarrow tetragonal phase transition, above which point a break-up of the macro-domain
plates was observed. Corresponding PFM studies demonstrated that poling reduced the
size of stripe-like domains that were internal to the macro-domain plates, whose size
also increased on heating to TR-T. The temperature dependence of both the size of
the macro-domain plates and internal sub-domains followed the Arrhenius relation with
the activation energy of 0.4-0.5eV. The coercive field displays an abnormal increase
on heating below TR-T, different than that for PMN-PT. The anomalously increased coercive
field can be ascribed to the Arrhenius-type domain growth, indicating a simple thermally
activated process and an important role of hierarchial domains in the improved performance
of PIN-PMN-PT.