A review of ferroelectric switching

This review paper begins with a discussion of switching kinetics for ferroelectrics, demonstrating experimentally that nucleation can be the more important step, rather than domain wall forward-growth or sid-ways velocities. It then presents a discussion of nonequilibrium domain patterns and kinetics that violate the Kittel Law for ferroelastics. This produces parabolic walls and thicknesses incompatible with earlier models by Landau and Lifshitz and by Roitburd, which are analogous to hydrodynamic instabilities better known in smectic liquid crystals, such as the Helfrich-Huraul instability. It concludes with a discussion of some subtleties in magnetoelectric multiferroics.