IMX Seminar Series - The kinetic evolution of domain microstructures in ferroelectric ceramics – simulations vs. experiments

Ferroelectric ceramics show intricate domain microstructures, which, upon applying sufficient electric or mechanical bias fields, evolve over time and are responsible for the electro-mechanically coupled material behavior observable at larger scales. Understanding the kinetic evolution of domains during polarization switching is challenging, as it involves mechanisms that extend from the atomic scale of ferroelectric dipoles to the mesoscale of domain patterns to the macroscopic device level. In this seminar, we discuss phase-field modeling strategies to simulate such processes with the overall objectives of (i) predicting realistic microstructures and (ii) capturing the intricate kinetic, time-dependent evolution mechanisms. We will show that temperature-dependent phase-field models are appropriate for (i), while new approaches are required for (ii). Besides discussing the phase-field framework and its predictions, we also present experimental data that characterize the rate dependence of polarization reversal and the underlying domain-scale mechanisms.