title: Can an electric field induce an antiferroelectric phase out of a ferroelectric phase?
abstract: It has been widely accepted that electric fields favor the ferroelectric phase with parallel electric dipoles over the antiferroelectric phase. With detailed measurements in polycrystalline ceramics of Pb(0.99)Nb(0.02[(Zr(0.57)Sn(0.43)(1-y)Ti(y)](0.98)O(3), we demonstrate in this Letter that electric fields can induce an antiferroelectric phase out of a ferroelectric phase, i.e., trigger an apparently unlikely ferroelectric-to-antiferroelectric phase transition. We suggest that it is caused by the volume contraction from the converse piezoelectric effect at the coercive field with a reversed polarity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA. xtan@iastate.edu
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Frederick
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rödel