Uniaxial relaxor ferroelectrics: The ferroic random-field Ising model materialized at last

Abstract

Owing to their intrinsic charge disorder ferroelectric crystals of strontium-barium-niobate doped with Ce3+ materialize the three-dimensional ferroic random-field Ising model (RFIM) as evidenced by order paramenter and susceptibility criticalities with Nb-93 NMR and dielectric spectroscopy, respectively. Upon cooling towards T-c, extreme critical slowing-down due to activated dynamic scaling gives rise to relaxor-like dispersion of the susceptibility and to a metastable ferroelectric nanodomain state with fractal size distribution as imaged by piezoelectric force microscopy.