The high-frequency dielectric behavior of uniaxial tungsten-bronze strontium barium niobate crystals with various Sr/Ba ratios, including both ferroelectric and relaxor compositions, have been studied in a broad frequency range (${10}^4$ to ${10}^{13}\mathrm{Hz}$) and temperature interval 100–500 K in order to thoroughly understand the evolution of the relaxation dynamics across the ferroelectric phase transition. The dielectric response along the polar axis consists of three relaxations corresponding to polarization mechanisms related to several correlation lengths of mesoscopic order. All of them show dissimilar behaviors with temperature, pointing out to their distinct nature. A temperature-dependent central mode at THz frequencies and a relaxation above 10 GHz are accompanied by the slowing down of a relaxation in the MHz range. This response reveals the complex mechanism of the phase transition and supports the coexistence of displacive and order-disorder scenarios. Relaxor and ferroelectric compositions surprisingly reveal similar qualitative behavior within the frequency window used. However, relaxor crystals display relaxations at higher frequency because of the smaller extent of the polar fluctuations and ferroelectric regions, which coexist in almost all the compositions. The presence of two different ferroelectric subsystems in the structure agrees with the existence of several polarization mechanisms involved in the complex dielectric and ferroelectric response.

• Received 24 July 2019
• Revised 30 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.184113