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Paper reports the second harmonic generation (SHG) in ferroelectric AgNa(NO2)2 crystals being driven by the spontaneous and electric field induced polarizations. Obtained results are interpreted within the phenomenological theory which considers the free energy describing the interaction between the spontaneous or electric field induced polarizations and spatially inhomogeneous electric polarizations resulted from propagating optical waves. Relatively high magnitudes of the effective second order nonlinear optical (NLO) susceptibilities in these crystals are combined with several phase matching geometries which allows to consider them as high-performance materials for potential NLO applications, such as parametric generation and amplification, frequency doubling, or other applications that require high-efficient frequency conversion. In addition, an anomalously large response of NLO susceptibilities with respect to an applied electric field has been found in the vicinity of the Curie point. This may also have a number of applications, especially in those devices where an efficient tunable control of SHG intensity is demanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature dependences of the dielectric permittivity of betaine phosphite crystals are studied both without and under application of an electric bias. It is shown that, in view of the fact that the high-temperature improper ferroelastic (antiferrodistorsive) phase transition at T[sub c1] = 355 K is nearly tricritical, the nonlinear temperature dependence of inverse dielectric permittivity in the paraelectric phase and the effect of the field on the dielectric permittivity can be described within a phenomenological model containing two coupled (polar and nonpolar) order parameters with a negative coupling coefficient. An analysis of the model revealed that, in the case where two phase transitions, a nonpolar and a ferroelectric one, can occur in the crystal, all of its dielectric properties, including the polarization response in a field, can be described by one dimensionless parameter a. For the crystal under study, we have a = -2.5. This value of the parameter corresponds to a second-order ferroelectric transition far from the tricritical point, at which a = -1. It is shown that the polarization response in the paraelectric phase in an electric field calculated within this model differs radically from that in the ferroelectric phase-transition model for which the Curie-Weiss law holds in the paraelectric phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mixed system of betaine arsenate and betaine phosphate (BP)x(BA)1-x displays, at low temperatures, dielectric anomalies that have been tentatively associated to re-entrant glass phases. In this work, we report results obtained for the composition x = 0.52. The temperature dependence of the complex dielectric constant, polarization hysteresis loops and pyroelectric currents reported prove that an effective ergodicity breaking occurs in the antiferroelectric phase and show that this phase is destabilized at low temperatures. There is also evidence for a high internal bias field, in the whole temperature range studied. Infrared and Raman spectroscopy indicate that the various dielectric anomalies observed reflect structural transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]