Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-materials-science-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-1/2/e/solution

ferroelectric poling is essential. An initially unpoled ceramic has differently oriented crystal grains and domains whose charge responses largely cancel. An applied electric field favours suitably oriented domains and leaves a remanent macroscopic polarization after removal; it does not rotate all crystal grains into a single crystal.
In the linear coefficient model the added source polarization is
This is the stress-generated contribution at fixed electric field, equivalent to the short-circuit charge per face area. Under open-circuit conditions the induced field supplies an opposing dielectric contribution, so ; the source quantity must not be confused with a change of total free electrode charge. For scale, room-temperature single-domain barium titanate has spontaneous polarization of order : the calculated increment is about of that value, a small response rather than wholesale reversal of the spontaneous polarization.[ref]
For the requested displacement estimate, assign the whole additional dipole moment of one cell to movement of its single ion relative to a fixed background. Then , giving
This formal-charge estimate is only an equivalent displacement: real polarization changes involve oxygen and barium displacements, electronic polarization and Born effective charges, as well as possible domain-wall motion. The coefficient supplied for the ceramic cannot uniquely determine an actual microscopic titanium trajectory.

New to topics? Read the docs here!