The effects of a non-ferroelectric slab on the polarization and the susceptibility of a ferroelectric multilayer

The polarization and the susceptibility of ferroelectric multilayers with a non-ferroelectric slab are investigated within the framework of the transverse Ising model (TIM) with a four-spin interaction term. The effect of the thickness and the position of the non-ferroelectric slab are investigated in this paper. We find that the increase in the thickness of the non-ferroelectric slab will decrease the polarization and the susceptibility of the film. If the position of the non-ferroelectric slab shifts from the center of the film to the surface, the number of peaks in the susceptibility will change and a step-like polarization curve should be found.