Preisach modeling of piezoelectric nonlinearity in ferroelectric ceramics

Piezoelectric response nonlinearity is approached using the Preisach descri ption of hysteretic systems as collection of distributed bistable units. Th e Preisach model and its recent physical interpretation in terms of moving domain wall in a stochastically described pinning field are reviewed. It is shown that such an approach can effectively render not only the piezoelect ric coefficient field dependences but also the field-response hysteresis, e specially in the well-known case of linear piezoelectric field dependence ( i.e., Rayleigh's law) where the bistable units are distributed homogeneousl y. New expressions for piezoelectric nonlinear behavior departing from the classical linear dependence are then derived using a more complex distribut ion and are qualitatively compared to experimental data for piezoelectric m aterials as varied as lead titanate, strontium bismuth titanate, and lead z irconate titanate. Finally, these expressions are shown to be adequate for the description of various piezoelectric coefficient behaviors such as: pol ynomial dependence on the applied field, dc field effect on nonlinear contr ibutions, and threshold field for nonlinearity. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.