Phenomenology of ferroelectrics with rotated octahedra

Abstract
Many perovskites go through transitions caused by the condensation of zone boundary modes in which the octahedra rotate around axes parallel to 〈100〉 of the cubic high-temperature phase. Some phase transitions are caused by the condensation of ferroelectric zone centre modes as well as by these octahedral rotational modes. A phenomenological theory of such ferroelectrics is presented, based on Landau's theory of second-order or continuous phase transitions, and the postulated free energy expansion is applied to the NaNbO3–KNbO3 system. The phase diagram is calculated and compared with experiment.