Effect of surface induced nucleation of ferroelastic domains on polarization switching in constrained ferroelectrics

The role played by a surface in nucleating ferroelastic domains during polarization switching was studied. The Ginzburg-Landau model incorporating components of the polarization vector and free-energy parameters was employed for the study. The switching behaviour and the hysteresis loops were found to depend on the shape of the grain boundary conditions. The saturation polarization, remnant polarization, and the coercive field were found to decrease with decreasing system size. The polarization reversal process was attributed to the weakening of the long-range elastic interactions with decreasing system size.