Abstract
The RbH2PO4 (often abbreviated as RbDP) is an hydrogen bonded material, it crystallizes in the tetragonal system at room temperature, this phase belongs to the non-centrosymmetrical space group I 2d; therefore, it is piezoelectric. A transition occurs at 146 K into a ferroelectric phase with orthorhombic symmetry and space group F dd2. The polar axis lies along the direction of the c axis of the tetragonal phase
In this work, we discussed the ferroelectricity of RbDP on the basis of the dipole interaction among the constituent ions and we calculated quantitatively the effective charges of the different ions by taking into account of the experimental value of the spontaneous polarization. The results of the calculations point out the important role of the hydrogen-bonds