Product and Component Grain and Domain Textures in Ferroelectric Ceramics

Ferroelectric/ferroelastic structures exhibit systematic crystallographic distortions below certain phase transition temperatures. Domains, or regions of spatial continuity in such distortions, form in a self-compensating pattern when cooled in the absence of an applied field, forming equal volume fractions of all possible states by uniform selection of crystallographic variants. An applied field (poling) can alter the volume fraction of domains within the ferroelectric phase by switching of the non-preferred orientations, a form of ferroelectric domain texture. When ceramics possess a crystallographic texture prior to inducing domain texture, the two component textures combine multiplicatively to form the complete product texture. Using tape cast bismuth titanate (Na0.5Bi4.5Ti4O15) with an initial crystallographic texture, this paper establishes the quantitative approach for resolving both the component grain and domain textures and describing the complete product texture.