Disrupting long-range polar order with an electric field
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The Department of Aerospace Engineering seeks to instruct the design, analysis, testing, and operation of vehicles which operate in air, water, or space, including studies of aerodynamics, structure mechanics, propulsion, and the like.
History
The Department of Aerospace Engineering was organized as the Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1942. Its name was changed to the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1961. In 1990, the department absorbed the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and became the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. In 2003 the name was changed back to the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
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1942-present
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- Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (1990-2003)
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- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (merged with, 1990)
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Abstract
lectric fields are known to favor long-range polar order through the aligning of electric dipoles in relation to Coulomb's force. Therefore, it would be surprising to observe a disordered polar state induced from an ordered state by electric fields. Here we show such an unusual phenomenon in a polycrystalline oxide where electric fields induce a ferroelectric-to-relaxor phase transition. The nonergodic relaxor phase with disordered dipoles appears as an intermediate state under electric fields during polarization reversal of the ferroelectric phase. Using the phenomenological theory, the underlying mechanism for this unexpected behavior can be attributed to the slow kinetics of the ferroelectric-to-relaxor phase transition, as well as its competition against domain switching during electric reversal. The demonstrated material could also serve as a model system to study the transient stages in first-order phase transitions; the slow kinetics does not require the use of sophisticated ultrafast tools.
Comments
This is an article from Physical Review B 93 (2016): doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.93.174114. Posted with permission.