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Microscopic retention properties have been studied in detail. Domain growth and stability of ferroelectric Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 thin films were investigated with electrostatic force microscope to understand microscopic polarization retention loss mechanism in polycrystalline and epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 thin films. Growth of domains and their relaxation behaviors were investigated and compared. The larger domains were the more stable than the smaller ones. The decay behavior of domain size could be fitted to a simple exponential function. The stretched exponential decay of the averaged polarization was attributed to the superposition of relaxation processes of all domains relaxing independently with their characteristic relaxation times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow dynamic behavior in Rb 1- x (ND 4 ) x D 2 AsO 4 (DRADA) with x =0.37 mixed crystals has been studied by measuring the time decay of remant polarization. The slower relaxation is observed as the waiting time prior to the removing field increases. This out of equilibrium behavior resembles the general aging features of disordered systems. A temperature shift during the waiting time results in an asymmetric response of the aging process according to the sign of the temperature variation. This asymmetric response indicates that the deuteron glass DRADA has the hierarchical arrangement of metastable states on decreasing temperature similar to spin glass systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature dependence of the electro-optic coefficient of Pb 1-x La x (Zr y ,Ti 1-y ) 1-y/4 O 3 ceramics with x= 0.09 and y= 0.65 was investigated in the field cooling and the zero field cooling run conditions. The electro-optic coefficient in the field cooling run increased continuously until 150 K, but in the zero field cooling run decreased below 230 K. The discrepancy was attributed to the freezing of ferroelectric domains and to the resultant insensitivity to the external electric field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]