Multi-axial electrical switching of a ferroelectric: Theory versus experiment (Q5933907)

The authors discuss in detail three existing approaches to describe the electrical switching phenomenon in ferroelectric materials: (i) a model for polycrystals with rate-independent non-hardening plasticity in which the interaction between individual crystals and their surroundings is accounted for, (ii) a model with viscoplastic (rate-dependent) behavior, and (iii) a phenomenological model with rate-independent flow with hardening and quadratic yield surface in the generalized space of stress and electric field. The predictions from each of these three models of a multi-axial switching experiment are compared, in which the initially unpoled material is polarized by electric field only, followed by electric field loading in a different direction. It is argued that the phenomenological model is able to reproduce the efficiently uni-axial switching only, while the simplified crystal plasticity approach is able to reproduce multi-axial behaviour with reasonable accuracy and relative computational simplicity.