Modeling of domain switching in ferroelectric ceramics: An example

The authors have recently proposed a continuum model for domain switching in polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics in which each crystallite is modeled as a mixture of various domains characterized by their mass fractions, and domain switching corresponds to changes of the mass fractions of the corresponding domains. In order to explore the implications of this model, the authors present the explicit solution to an idealized one-dimensional ferroelectric system. The solution indicates that the orientation misalignment of crystallites results in a local electric field of strong inhomogeneity. The local electric field does not necessarily vanish in the absence of an externally applied electric field and its magnitude at certain locations can be substantially larger than that of the externally applied electric field. With a postulated domain switching criterion, the model produces the hysteretic response of the macroscopic polarization to the applied electric field due to local domain switching. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd