Permanent electrical polarization and the evaluation of piezoelectric coefficients

Abstract

The nature of “permanent” electric polarization in dielectrics is considered and the view expressed that it is a nebulous quantity. Since the large permanent polarizations inferred from thermal depolarization experiments, or from theory, are almost completely compensated by surface charges in real materials, they should not be used to make corrections to experimentally determined piezoelectric and pyroelectric coefficients. Such “corrected” coefficients could apply only to physically unrealisable materials.