Abstract
The effect of stabilizing the properties of piezoelectric Pb(ZrTi)O3-ceramics by addition of the oxides of Mn, Cr or U is studied. Some ordering of the polarization is found to be preserved after heating the material above the Curie temperature. A model for the mechanism is presented, the basic idea of which is the trapping of charge carriers compensating the grain surface charges caused by the spontaneous polarization.