From Swiss-cheese to discrete ferroelectric composites: Assessing the ferroelectric butterfly shape in polarization loops

We explore the polarization hysteretic behaviour and field-dependent permittivity of ferroelectric-dielectric 2D materials formed by random dispersions of low permittivity inclusions in a ferroelectric matrix, using finite element simulations. We show how the degree of impenetrability of dielectric inclusions plays a substantial role in controlling the coercive field, remnant and saturation polarizations of the homogenized materials. The results highlight the significance of the degree of impenetrability of inclusion in tuning the effective polarization properties of such ferroelectric composites: coercive field drops significantly as percolation threshold is attained and remnant polarization decreases faster than a linear decay.