Piezoelectric response of engineered domains in ferroelectrics

We study the formation of engineered ferroelectric domains in two dimensions based on a continuum approach that incorporates the long-range elastic and electrostatic interactions. The model is also used to simulate the piezoelectric properties of the engineered domain configurations and the response is compared with that of an analogous single domain state. The results show that the low field piezoelectric constants for the engineered configuration are very close to those obtained for the corresponding single domain state and the domain wall influence is not significant. For high fields, domain walls act as nucleation sites for an electric field induced structural transition. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.