Study of ferroelectric polarization in poly(vinylidene fluoride) using the constant current method

It is shown that the constant current method, in which a dielectric is charged with a constant current while the voltage is monitored, allows one to determine the dependence of the stable ferroelectric polarization with the electric field. The determination is based on two successive experiments separated in time by a short-circuit period: a charging process in which polarization switching occurs followed by a recharging with the same current polarity. Analysis of the recharging experiments for poly(vinylidene fluoride), PVDF, shows that the polarization appearing in it is a metastable ferroelectric polarization, due to the reorientation of ferroelectric polarization lost during the short-circuit period. The method was applied to measure the ferroelectric polarization in PVDF samples with different β-phase contents and in an exploratory way for a few other ferroelectric polymers.