Vogel-Fulcher freezing in relaxor ferroelectrics

Abstract

A physical mechanism for the freezing of polar nanoregions (PNRs) in relaxor ferroelectrics is presented. Assuming that the activation energy for the reorientation of a cluster of PNRs scales with the mean volume of the cluster, the characteristic relaxation time $\tau$ is found to diverge as the cluster volume reaches the percolation limit. Applying the mean field theory of continuum percolation, the familiar Vogel-Fulcher equation for the temperature dependence of $\tau$ is derived.

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Asymmetric phase diagram of mixed $CuIn{P}_2(S_{x}S{e}_{1-x}{)}_6$ crystals
• Epitaxial growth and magnetoelectric relaxor behavior in multiferroic 0.8Pb(Fe1/2Nb1/2)O3-0.2Pb(Mg1/2W1/2)O3 thin films
• Magnetic control of large room-temperature polarization