A computational model of ferroelectric domains. Part II: grain boundaries and defect pinning Original Research Article

Domain nucleation, domain switching and the hysteretic behavior of ferroelectric polycrystals or ceramics can differ from those in ferroelectric single crystals. This paper extends the model presented in Part I to polycrytals, and uses it to study domain switching in bicrystals that are chosen to model biaxially textured thin films. The results show that the switching behavior in bicrystals is similar to that in single crystals for small misalignment of grains but becomes quite different at larger misalignment.