Pure and Nd-modified ceramics were prepared by using the conventional solid state reaction method, and their dielectric and mechanical properties were investigated. This showed that the activation energy of O vacancies was enhanced, while the concentration of O vacancies was reduced, when Bi3+ ions were partially replaced by Nd3+ ions. Cole–Cole fitting to the dielectric loss revealed a strong correlation among the O vacancies, which was found to be proportional to the concentration of O vacancies. The strong correlation efficiently reduced the activation energy of O vacancies. It was concluded that the enhancement of the activation energy originated from the diluted O vacancy concentration, and that such a concentration was an aspect of the excellent fatigue resistance of Nd-modified samples.

Correlation Among Oxygen Vacancies and its Effect on Fatigue in Neodymium-Modified Bismuth Titanate Ceramics. W.Li, C.Wang, J.Zhu, Y.Wang: Journal of Physics - Condensed Matter, 2004, 16[50], 9201-8