A primary x-ray investigation of the turning of ferroelectric microspheres contained in electrorheological fluids under a direct current electric field

An x-ray diffraction method is introduced to probe the turning of ferroelectric singlecrystal microspheres suspended in electrorheological (ER) fluids. The microspheres used in the experiment have their permanent dipoles polarized in the same direction. Our initial results show that the x-ray diffraction amplitude in some crystal planes will increase when a fixed dc electric field is applied to the ER fluids. We argue that the enhancement of the diffraction is due to the reorientation of the crystal planes which is caused by the turning of the permanent dipoles in the ferroelectric microspheres under an external electric field. The particle turning has not attracted much attention in the past. We propose that further work should be performed.