Particle size dependence of ferro- and antiferroelectricity

The authors deal with the particle size dependence of the crystallographic structure and Curie/Neel temperature in powder samples. Ferroelectric Ba/sub 0.9/Sr/sub 0.1/TiO/sub 3/ and antiferroelectric PbZrO/sub 3/ were selected for this investigation. The phase transition temperature T/sub C/ in the ferroelectric decreased with decreasing particle size, while T/sub N/ in the antiferroelectric changed insensitively with particle size. This dependence may mainly be caused by the effective surface tensional stress estimated by P=2 gamma /R, where gamma is the surface tension ( approximately 50-67 N/m) and R is the radius of the particle.<
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