Alkaline
niobates are most suitable and excellent candidates for lead free
piezoceramics, as they exhibit morphotropic phase boundary and have
ultra-large piezoresponse similar to them. We provide direct
experimental evidence of ferroelectric to paraelectric phase transition
in (Li0.06Na0.94 )NbO3 with reduction
of particle size using a combination of x-ray and neutron powder
diffraction techniques at room temperature. Detailed Rietveld analyses
of x-ray data show variation of particle sizes from micrometer to
nanometer for sintered, calcined, and ball milled powders. The
ferroelectric orthorhombic phase for micron sized powder (~1.17lm) is
found to transform to paraelectric phase by reducing particle size to
~10.8nm. The crystal structure of paraelectric phase has been identified
with tetragonal symmetry (P42/mmc) and is found to
be a post perovskite phase. The low temperature neutron diffraction
studies on the powders with different particle sizes reveal that
orthorhombic to rhombohedral phase transition gets suppressed with
reducing particle size.