Peculiarities of Ferro-Antiferroelectric Phase Transitions 9. Can the Substances with Coexisting Ferroelectric and Antiferroelectric Phases Mimic the Dipole-Glass Behavior?

Abstract

We demonstrate that the substances with coexisting ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases possess properties characteristic for the "dipole glasses". Possible phase diagrams of such substances are discussed. Main attention is paid to the long-time relaxation of physical characteristics of these compounds after their thermodynamic equilibrium was disturbed by external influences. The long-time relaxation and the pronounced frequency dependence of parameters (for example, dependence of characteristics on the frequency of measuring field) are the main features due to which these systems are classified as dipole glasses. Our main purpose is to call attention to the fact that one has to be cautious during the interpretation of experimental results in substances with inhomogeneous states of coexisting domains of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases.

Effects of aging and annealing on the polar and antiferrodistortive components of the antiferroelectric transition inPbZr1−xTixO3

“…2 The large strains involved in the transition may be partly responsible for the slow kinetics of the FE to AFE transition driven by cooling, and hence large thermal hysteresis, and may even cause lattice damage ranging from broken bonds 3,4 to cracks. 5,6 The slow kinetics of AFE/FE transitions has been the object of experimental and theoretical/phenomenological modeling, including a series of articles by Ishchuk and coworkers,7 who propose that short range cation migration is involved, and is made possible at room temperature by the large stress at the AFE/FE interfaces. 8 The physics of the AFE/FE transition can be particularly rich, and these authors even suggest that the relaxor transition can be explained in terms of coexisting FE and AFE phases.…”