Thermodynamics and kinetics of switching of ferroelastic ferroelectrics at its initial stage

Thermodynamics and kinetics of switching of ferroelastic ferroelectrics (FFs) are studied at the initial (weak-metastability) stage. It is shown that in the switching of a uniaxial FF, the role of the electric field and mechanical stress simultaneously applied to the FF is analogous to that of supersaturation or supercooling of solutions and melts in the process of a conventional phase transition. The dependence of the critical size of a domain on the strength of the switching field is derived. In the space of domain sizes, the dependence of the steady flux of repolarized and redeformed nuclei on the applied field is determined and the time required for this steady flux to set in (latent time) and the time during which this flux is steady are estimated.