Polarization Switching in Ferroelectric Thin Films Undergoing First-Order Phase Transitions
Figure 1
Switching rate, 1/τ (in units of ), from the metastable ferroelectric state to the second metastable ferroelectric state (for the reduced dimensionless temperature , curve 1) and from the first stable ferroelectric state to the second stable ferroelectric state (for , curve 2) for the 2D system as a function of the dimensionless applied electric field ; is the coercive field. The number of dipoles is . The initial state corresponds to the ferroelectric state with a nucleus of the second ferroelectric domain with the dipoles oriented in the opposite direction (the size of the nucleus is ). Parameters of the calculation are chosen in accordance with the data for : the coefficient of the dipole-dipole interaction is ; the coefficient of the interaction between nearest neighbours is These coefficients are taken from the dielectric and structure measurements in [17].
