A transmission-electron-microscopy study of barium sodium niobate has confirmed new features of the incommensurate phase. We present here images showing the nucleation of the incommensurate phase when the temperature increases after thermal cycling the sample or annealing in the incommensurate phase. In agreement with previous inferences, in situ annealing either at 230 ^∘{}C near the lock-in transition or at 270 ^∘{}C close to the tetragonal normal phase transition can favor the stability of a unidirectional 1q or a doubly modulated 2q incommensurate phase, respectively. The difference in the orientation of discommensurations, either perpendicular to the orthorhombic a axis or perpendicular to the tetragonal a and b axes, agree with an assignment of the two phases based on theoretical arguments and on x-ray and optical data.
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Barré et al. (1988) studied this question.
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