Dielectric and anelastic relaxation of crystals containing point defects. II

Abstract

In part I (1965, Adv. Phys., 14, 101), a theory was developed which treated the thermodynamics of dielectric and anelastic relaxation due to point defects in crystals from the viewpoint of the point symmetry of the defect as well as of the crystal. In the present paper this theory is extended to treat the kinetics of relaxation. Equations are derived which express the relaxation times of electrically and stress active modes of relaxation in terms of the rates of reorientation between one particular defect orientation and all of the other equivalent configurations. Explicit expressions are then given for these relaxation times for commonly occurring crystal and defect symmetries. The reorientation frequencies which appear in these expressions may be converted into the appropriate atom or ion jump rates; this final step can generally be carried out merely by inspection of the crystal model. The possibility that two or more relaxations due to a given point defect may be widely separated on a frequency or temperature scale (a situation which is called a ‘frozen-free split’), and the anomalies connected with such behaviour, are discussed. Finally, various examples which have been studied in the literature, of relaxations due to point defects, are reviewed in the framework of the present theory. © 1967 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.