The effect of strain on the domain switching of ferroelectric polycrystals

Abstract

The effect of external strain on the non-linear electromechanical behavior of a ferroelectric poly-crystal is investigated under different applied electric fields by using a phase field model. Simulation results show that the domain switching induced by electric field under a tensile strain is much easier than that under a compressive strain, which is attributed to that a multi-domain structure can be more easily formed under the tensile strain than in the case of compressive strain when the electric field is absent. It is also found that a compressive misfit strain increases the macroscopic coercive field and remnant polarization while a tensile misfit strain decreases both of them. In addition, a compressive strain decreases the non-linear dielectric constant while a tensile strain increases it.