Domain pinning and electric fatigue of ferroelectric ceramics

Experimental observations indicate that electric fatigue of polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics is partially recoverable through thermal treatments at temperatures that are too low to heal microcracking which is considered to be the primary cause of electric fatigue. It has been conjectured that this thermally-recoverable fatigue is due to domain pinning. This paper presents a theoretical model for the domain pinning effect on macroscopic properties of polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics. The numerical results suggest that domain pinning can indeed lead to the type of fatigue behavior as observed.