Polarisation switching dynamics by Inhomogeneous Field Mechanism in ferroelectric polymers

The understanding of polarisation switching dynamics of ferroelectrics is of great importance for practical applications and is being steadily advanced for ferroelectric ceramics and polymers for more than half a century. The temporal behaviour of polarisation reversal in ferroelectric polymers like polyvinylidenedifluoride (PVDF) or its copolymer with trifluoroethylene P(VDF-TrFE) cannot be satisfactory explained by simple models such as the classical Kolmogorov-Avrami-Ishibashi nucleation and growth theory or by models considering stretched exponential laws. In this paper, inhomogeneous Field Mechanism (IFM) model recently proposed for PZT ceramics has been applied to polymer ferroelectrics for the first time.