The intermediate glassy phase in a ferroelectric with dislocations

This paper examines, in the mean-field approximation, the phase transitions in an elasto-isotropic cubic ferroelectric crystal with randomly distributed ring dislocations. It is found that a transition to the dipole-glass phase with chaotic, spontaneous unit-cell dipole moments, characterized by the Edwards-Anderson nonlocal parameter, precedes the transition to the ferroelectric phase. Also determined are the features of the thermodynamic parameters of the crystal at the phase-transition points. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 116, 986–1000 (September 1999)