Robert Blinc

TL;DR: It is shown that on approaching the critical point, both the energy cost and the electric field necessary to induce ferroelectric polarization rotations decrease significantly, thus explaining the giant electromechanical response of these relaxors.

TL;DR: In this article, a model of relaxor ferroelectrics based on the interacting polar clusters picture has been formulated and its static properties are investigated, where the electric dipole moment of a nanosized polar domain is allowed a large number of discrete orientations and its length is assumed to fluctuate in a broad interval.

TL;DR: In this article, a quantum-mechanical extension of Mason and Devonshire's long-range forces model was proposed to explain the isotopic effects in the ferroelectric properties of hydrogen-bonded crystals.

TL;DR: In this article, the electrocaloric effect (ECE) in inorganic thin film and organic relaxor ferroelectrics is investigated by directly measuring the ECE around room temperature, and the results reveal that giant ECEs can be obtained in the high energy electron irradiated poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) relaxor copolymer and in the La-doped Pb(ZrTi)O3 relaxor ceramic thin films, which are much larger than that from the normal ferroelectric counterparts.

TL;DR: The results demonstrate the coexistence of a displacive and order-disorder component in the phase transition mechanism and tetragonal breaking of the cubic symmetry due to biased Ti motion between off-center sites in the paraelectric phase above T(c).