We describe the experimental method and report the results of electron emission from PLZT-2/95/5 ceramics subjected to rectangular HV pulses. The influence of HV amplitude, of gas pressure, and of temperature on electron beam current-density and charge was investigated. The kinetic energy was estimated by applying a decelerating field. Emitted current-density pulses of several A/cm² and charges of 1 μC/cm² are measured. A tentative interpretation is given.

Results of experiments investigating the influence of the amplitude, the growth rate, and the repetition rate of the exciting electric field pulses on the electron current and charge density emitted from ferroelectrics are reported. The behavior of two types of lead-lanthanum-zirconium-titanate (PLZT) ceramics, 2/95/5 and 8/65/35, was studied. The temporal shift between the applied HV pulses and the emitted electron current pulses was different for the two materials. Regular electron emission was observed at repetition rates of up to 2 MHz in the PLZT-2/95/5 material, showing that the recovery of the emitting sample back to the original state may happen in less than a microsecond.

A new type of low‐pressure gas switch is described. The switch is triggered by an electron beam that is emitted from the surface of a ferroelectric sample. The electron beam is generated within the hollow cathode and ejected through a hole of arbitrary shape into the main gap of the switch. The beam current and the electron energy can be chosen such that breakdown is achieved with small jitter. The switch with its ferroelectric trigger requires neither heating nor an auxiliary gas discharge. The fast spontaneous polarization change ΔP_s, which is the cause of electron emission, is induced by a high‐voltage pulse from an electronic switching circuit.

Ferroelectric and multiferroic materials present a nonlinear variation in their permittivity due to domain wall motion. Currently, this variation is described either by the Rayleigh law for fields above a threshold or by a power law for soft ferroelectrics. We propose a hyperbolic law based on the contributions of domain walls and intrinsic lattice which includes the two classic approaches. The threshold field is clearly defined by considering reversible and irreversible components of the permittivity. A good agreement between the hyperbolic law and experimental data is obtained. Moreover, we show that the threshold field obeys to the Volgel–Fulcher law.