Effects of annealing and stress on domain switching in titanate-based single crystals

In this paper, domain switching induced by applied stress and thermal treatment was compared in (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3-xBaTiO3 (NBT-BT) solid solutions and the monolithic components by Raman spectroscopy. Despite possessing a Ti-O-6 structure, the titanate materials exhibit quite different patterns of switching upon indentation generation, which might be associated with the presence of distinct stable polarizations. Significant stress induced a -> c domain switching occurs around the indentation print and along the cracks for stress relaxation during crack propagation in the case of BT, while for NBT and related solution, remnant domains exist and a switching of the domains to other polarization, e.g., 110 may occur, showing a dependence on the BT addition content. Thermal treatments at temperatures above the Curie point were found to show different influences on domain patterns due to distinct changes in the microstructure in the presence of residual stress fields, suggesting the possibility of a combinatory effect of thermal treatment and residual stress for domain controls.