Pure K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃ (KNN) and KNN doped with Li⁺ (6% mole), La³⁺ (1.66%, 5%, 6% mole), and Ti⁴⁺ (10% mole) were prepared by mixture of oxides using high-energy milling and conventional solid-state reaction. The effects of the dopant on the physical properties of pure KNN have been evaluated based on the structural, ferroelectric, pyroelectric, and dielectric measurements. The XRD measurements show that KNN pure sample contains a mixture of monoclinic and orthorhombic crystalline phases, with a slightly higher concentration of monoclinic phase. In contrast, all doped samples show a higher concentration of the orthorhombic phase, as well as the presence of a secondary phase (K₆Nb_10.8O₃₀), also detected by Raman measurements. The samples with a higher concentration of this secondary phase, also present greater dielectric losses and lower values of remnant polarization. The dielectric measurements allowed us to detect temperatures of structural transitions (orthorhombic-tetragonal, O-T) previous to the ferroelectric-paraelectric transition (tetragonal-cubic, T-C), and also in this set of samples, a direct correlation was found between the values of remnant polarization and the corresponding pyroelectric signal response.

This study presents the photoluminescence characteristics of the PZT 53/47 system doped at A and/or B sites, with Nb (PZTN), La (PLZT), and Nb–La (PLZTN) in the concentration range from 0.2 to 1.0 molar fraction. The intensity of the emission bands of the system PZTN is two orders higher than the intensity of the emission bands of the systems PLZT and PLZTN, and these emission bands are located at 1.73 eV (718 nm), 2.56 eV (485 nm), and 2.93 eV (424 nm). The origin of the luminescence in these systems is associated with lead and oxygen vacancies produced during the sintering process. The results from X-ray diffraction (XRD) show a mixture of rhombohedral and tetragonal phases. The system PZTN shows a higher tetragonal phase concentration, while PLZT and PLZTN systems show a higher rhombohedral phase concentration. The cell volume shows an increase with dopant concentration only in the case of the PLZTN system. The band gap energy shows a small variation in the PZTN and PLZTN cases around 3.0 eV, a close value to the band gap energy of the pure PZT 53/47 sample. The system PLZT shows an increasing behavior until 4.41 eV for the higher dopant concentration.