The mechanism of the polarization reversal of ferroelectrics

Abstract

The problem of kinks stability in ferroelectric crystals is considered. It is found that when an electri filed E is applied to a ferroelectric crystal kink-like structures are unstable relative to the kink-phonon interaction. The domains that are favourably oriented with respect to the field can nucleate and grow until the whole crystal becomes one single domain. When the field is reversed, the polarization reverses through the same processes. The switching time followed a power law t_sw ∝ Eⁿ, where the index n is about 1.5. The dependence is similar to the one observed experimetally.

Key Words:

• Ferroelectrics
• electric field
• polarization reversal
• solitons
• nonlinear interaction