Dynamic pyroelectric enhancement of homogeneous ferroelectric materials

The time-dependent thermal response to a step-wise temperature increase of a ferroelectric plate of BaTiO3 of finite thickness was determined using a combination of basic heat transfer relations to model the temperature variation in the ferroelectric as a function of time and a thermodynamic model based on a modified Landau formalism to calculate the polarization profile due to the temperature gradient. An enhancement over the static pyroelectric response was revealed, having a maximum value of −0.01 μC/cm2 °C, for detector thicknesses in the range of 1 to 100 μm.