Polarization and depolarization of relaxor ferroelectric strontium barium niobate

The anomalies of polarization (mismatch of hysteresis loops for several first repolarization cycles, the absence of specific coercive field, etc.) in quasi-static and dc electric fields have been found in the strontium barium niobate relaxor ferroelectric. The anomalies are associated with a highly inhomogeneous structure of the crystal, which is considered a clearly defined nonergodic system with a random distribution of strong local internal fields. The energy distributions of potential barriers for the polarization and the depolarization are obtained at different electric field strengths and temperatures.