| Details: |
Ferroelectrics are the base materials for commercial piezoelectric based devices largely applicable in
different pressure sensors and actuators. By the virtue of electric field driven domain wall mobility and
inter ferroelectric structural transformations, ferroelectrics exhibit enhanced electromechanical responses
(EMRs) in the vicinity of morphotropic phase boundary (MPB). We unraveled the relative contribution of
field induced domain wall mobility/inter ferroelectric structural transformation towards EMRs in classical
ferroelectric based MPB. An anomalous reduction in the domain wall mobility is observed at the MPB
and field induced inter ferroelectric phase transformation is found to be key contributive mechanism
towards EMRs. We show that electric field driven inter ferroelectric structural transformation in
ferroelectrics can lead to the tuning of rare earth photoluminescence, adding multi functionality to the
ferroelectrics. A considerably varied length scale dependency of structure and electromechanical
properties is established among ferroelectrics and relaxor ferroelectrics – differs from normal
ferroelectrics by the persistence of short range polar structural ordering in their matrices. The unusually
large length scale dependent phenomena in relaxor ferroelectrics are attributed to the inherent polar
structural heterogeneity. |