In an attempt to understand the origin of relaxor ferroelectricity, it is shown that interesting behavior of the onset of nonergodicity and of precursor nanodomains, found in first-principles simulations of the relaxor alloy $\mathrm{Ba}({\mathrm{Zr}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Ti}}_x){\mathrm{O}}_3$, can easily be understood within a simple mapping to a soft pseudospin glass.

• Received 8 July 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.227601