Avalanches in ferroelectric, ferroelastic and coelastic materials: phase transition, domain switching and propagation

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The motion of domain walls and phase fronts in ferroelectric and ferroelastic materials displays discrete, impulsive jumps, i.e. jerks, as indicators of avalanches on a broad range of scales. Several experimental techniques used to characterise these avalanches show that they are power law distributed and share some statistical similarities with the avalanches observed during the compression of porous materials. Simulations attribute their origin to kinks and needle domains pinned by junctions between domain walls and show their evolution with the amplitude of the driving field. Recent studies on conductive and polar domain walls prove promising for the development of domain wall engineering.