Role of grain orientation distribution in the ferroelectric and ferroelastic domain switching of ferroelectric polycrystals

The non-linear electromechanical behavior of ferroelectric polycrystals stems from polarization/domain switching, which are affected by the grain boundaries and grain orientations. The effects of grain orientation distribution on the domain switching and non-linear behavior of a two-dimensional ferroelectric polycrystal subjected to an electric or/and mechanical load are investigated by computer simulations with a real-space phase-field model. Phase-field simulations indicate that the macroscopic coercive field, remanent polarization and remanent strain in the polycrystal with a random distribution of grain orientation are correspondingly smaller than those in the polycrystal with a uniform distribution of grain orientation. However, the polycrystal with randomly distributed grain has a larger strain variation with the electric field than the polycrystal with uniformly distributed grains, which suggests that the random polycrystal has a better piezoelectric property than the uniform one. The different macroscopic non-linear behaviors of the ferroelectric polycrystals are attributed to different microscopic domain switching processes. For the polycrystal with randomly distributed grains, the domain switching takes place from the regions near the large angle grain boundaries, while new domains nucleate from the cross sections between the grain boundaries and the material surface in the polycrystal with uniform grain orientation. (C) 2013 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.