Behavior of ferroelectric ceramics in a strong, rapidly increasing electric field

An electrical circuit is described which contains a storage capacitor, a removable inductance coil, and a ferroelectric ceramic test sample. It is possible by recording the current and voltage across the sample to study prebreakdown and breakdown phenomena as a function of the growth rate of the field and to determine the dielectric characteristics of ferroelectric ceramics (repolarization, hysteresis, coercive field, dielectric permittivity). Test results are reported for four PZT ferroelectric piezoelectric ceramics for field growth rates between 0.5 and 160 km/mm/microsecond.