Piezoelectric properties of rhombohedral ferroelectric materials with phase transition

The temporal evolution of domain structure and its piezoelectric behavior of ferroelectric material BaTiO3 during the transition process from rhombohedral to tetragonal phase under an applied electric field have been studied by employing Landau-Ginzburg theory and the phase-field method. The results obtained show that, during the transformation process, the intermediate phase was monoclinic MA phase, and several peak values of piezoelectric coefficient appeared at the stage where obvious change of domain pattern occurred. In addition, by comparing the cases of applied electric field with different frequencies, it was found that the maximum piezoelectric coefficient obtained decreased with increasing frequency value. These results are of great significance in tuning the properties of engineering domains in ferroelectrics, and could provide more fundamentals to the design of ferroelectric devices.