Electron emission from ferroelectric ceramics caused by unipolar switching pulses

According to theoretical analysis, in ferroelectric ceramics internal fields due to the screening of grain boundary depletion layers favours backward switching of the spontaneous polarization after switching off the external electric field Computer simulation shows that, in contrast to single crystals, in ferroelectric ceramics with high enough density of grain boundary surface acceptor states, the electron emission may be observed repeatedly using the unipolar switching pulses.

Keywords:

• Electron emission
• ferroelectric ceramics
• grain boundaries
• spontaneous polarization
• screening