Elementary theory of switching in ferroelectric materials

Abstract

Several years ago the statistical theory of ferroelectricity (1) was extended to dynamical problems as switching (2). The theory used simple transition probabilities between “positive” and “negative” domains and did not take into account the entropy of the whole system. The results were found in full disagreement with experimental results. In this paper, an improved theory will be given including entropy considerations and following the laws of irreversible thermodynamics. In part I the theory will be exposed, in part II the numerical results will be discussed and compared to the available experimental results.