Electric-field-induced internal deformation in piezoelectric BiB3O6 crystals

For the first time electric‐field‐induced atomic displacements (internal strains) in non‐ferroelectric polar BiB3O6 single crystal plates (point symmetry 2) were investigated using X‐ray diffraction technique. The intensity variations of selected Bragg reflections were collected for three different orientations of the applied external electric field vector with respect to the crystal lattice and used for calculating the microscopic structural response of BiB3O6. Due to the limited number of the reflections providing measurable changes in Bragg intensities we restricted ourselves in analyzing the shift of the B3O6 sublattice relative to the Bi one. In addition, we considered the deformation of the Bi‐O, B(1)‐O and B(2)‐O bond lengths and identified the [B(2)O3] group as the most sensitive structural unit to an external electric perturbation. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)