Stress induced polarization switching and coupled hysteretic dynamics in ferroelectric materials

The dynamic responses of ferroelectric materials upon external mechanical and electrical stimulations are inherently nonlinear and coupled. In the current paper, a macroscopic differential model is constructed for the coupled hysteretic dynamics via modeling the orientation switching induced in the materials. A non-convex potential energy is constructed with both mechanic and electric field contributions. The governing equations are formulated as nonlinear ordinary differential equations by employing the Euler-Lagrange equation, and can be easily recast into a state space form. Hysteresis loops associated with stress induced polarization switching and butterfly-shaped behavior in ferroelectric materials are also successfully captured. The effects of mechanical loadings on the electrically induced switching are numerically investigated, as well as the mechanically-induced switching with various bias electric fields. © 2011 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg