Ferroelectric domain switching under low voltage or short pulses is of interest for the development of high-density random access memory (FRAM) devices. Being necessarily very small in size, instability and back switching often occur when the external voltage is removed, which creates serious problems. In this investigation, a general approach to determine the minimum size of ferroelectric domain to avoid back switching was developed, and as an example, a 180°domain in a ferroelectric thin film covered by the upper and lower electrodes was considered in detail. We note that our approach is generally applicable to many other fields, including phase transformation, nucleation and expansion of dislocation loops in thin films, etc.
The dynamic behavior of two parallel symmetry cracks in magneto-electro-elastic composites under harmonic anti-plane shear waves is studied by Schmidt method. By using the Fourier transform, the problem can be solved with a pair of dual integral equations in which the unknown variable is the jumps of the displacements across the crack surfaces. To solve the dual integral equations, the jumps of the displacements across the crack surface were expanded in a series of Jacobi polynomials. The relations among the electric filed, the magnetic flux and the stress field were obtained. From the results, it can be obtained that the singular stresses in piezoelectric/piezomagnetic materials carry the same forms as those in a general elastic material for the dynamic anti-plane shear fracture problem. The shielding effect of two parallel cracks was also discussed.
