Evolution of ferroelectricity in ultrafine-grained Pb5Ge3O11 crystallized from the glass

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Abstract
By controlled crystallization of the ferroelectric crystalline phase of Pb5Ge3O11 from the glass of the same composition, the evolution of ferroelectric behavior has been studied as a function of grain size. The large‐grained material (≳1 μm) exhibits normal ferroelectric behavior. However, during the initial growth of grains of about 10‐nm dimensions the polarization is unstable and no dielectric anomaly is observed. The behavior of this fine‐grained material can be understood in terms of large dipolar clusters which can be frozen into ferroelectriclike order at low temperatures in the presence of an electric field, but which are too small to stabilize spontaneous ferroelectric order.