Four switching categories for thin-film and bulk ferroelectrics

Abstract

We classify the switching kinetics of ferroelectrics including both epitaxial/polycrystalline thin films and single-crystalline/ceramic bulks at various applied fields into four categories, depending on whether the depolarization field and/or the polarization reversal induced by the switching promotion effect between adjacent parts can be neglected. We show that our statistical model developed very recently [Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 21, 012207 (2009)] in its generalized form applies to all these four categories. Finally we make the comparison between our model and the conventional Kolmogorov-Avrami-Ishibashi model and discuss the behavior of the switching currents for different n.