Dielectric properties of hydrogen halides. IV. Ferroelectric behavior in HBr

Abstract

Ferroelectric properties of HBr in its low temperature solid phase have been studied by superposition of small signal ac and biasing dc fields in a special cell. The low frequency dispersion can be drastically changed by bias fields and thermal history and is attributed to dipole reorientations at domain boundaries, while the much smaller and faster (by a factor 10 4 ) high frequency dispersion is unchanged in amplitude and is attributed to dipole reorientations within domain regions. No evidence was found for low frequency dispersion or hysteresis in the low temperature phase of solid HI. and it is concluded that HI is not ferroelectric.