The perovskite crystal structure determines the appearance of ferroelectricity and the determination of the polarization direction of ferroelectric ceramics. When the polarization direction has a certain order, different domain structures will combine to form a multiparticle system with a specific morphology, the topological structures that exist in ferroelectrics. In this study, the domain structure of potassium sodium niobate (<em>K</em><sub>0.5</sub><em>Na</em><sub>0.5</sub><em>NbO</em><sub>3</sub>) thin films under different hysteresis electric fields and thicknesses was observed by the phase field method. According to the different switching paths of the domain structure under the electric field, the domain is divided into fast and slow switching process. Based on this, a method is proposed to first determine the domain switching state of the desired experiment and then conduct directional observation. Through the analysis of the domain structures combined with the polarization vector, a clear multi-domain combined vortex-antivortex pair topological structure was observed for the first time in <em>K</em><sub>0.5</sub><em>Na</em><sub>0.5</sub><em>NbO</em><sub>3</sub> films. The vortex structure was further analyzed for its switching process, and it was observed that this vortex topological microstructure can make the domain more likely to switch, so that more small-scale polarization vectors can be ordered to form the desired multiparticle system topology. This polarization vector ordering is similar to the microscopic phase boundary formed by the specific polarization directions on both sides of the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) for the improvement of the dielectric properties of ferroelectric materials.
In this work, atomically K1−xNaxNbO3 thin films are taken as examples to investigate the reversible and irreversible effects in a horizon plane, i.e., the changes of domain structures, phase states, free energies, etc., under a z-axis alternating current field via a phase-field method. The simulation results show the driving forces during the charging and discharging process, where there is a variation for the angles of the domain walls from 180° to 90° (and then an increase to 135°), which are the external electric field and domain wall evolution, respectively. As for the phase states, there is a transformation between the orthorhombic and rhombohedral phases which can’t be explained by the traditional polarization switching theory. This work provides a reasonable understanding of the alternating current field effect, which is essential in information and energy storage.
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