Mechanism of domain pattern coarsening in ferroelectric sodium nitrite

Abstract

Abstract The mechanism of domain pattern coarsening in a nearly one-dimensional kink system in ferroelectric sodium nitrite, NaNO2, has been studied by means of an etching technique. Starting from a domain pattern of which the average domain width is 0.6 μm, the pattern coarsens initially through nucleation and growth of antistripples. However, nucleation of antistripples does no more occur between walls separated by more than 2 μm. In the late stage the pattern coarsens through the backward motion of the fronts of wedge-shaped domains and the average domain width increases in proportion to the square root of time. Throughout the whole process, the domain size distribution functions are well scaled and have a shape resembling the Poisson distribution with a cutoff for narrow widths. The structure function of the pattern shows a peak at a non-zero wavevector.