An antiferroelectric material consists of an ordered (crystalline) array of electric dipoles (from the ions and electrons in the material), but with adjacent dipoles oriented in opposite (antiparallel) directions (the dipoles of each orientation form interpenetrating sublattices, loosely analogous to a checkerboard pattern).
In an antiferroelectric, unlike a ferroelectric, the total, macroscopic spontaneous polarization is zero, since the adjacent dipoles cancel each other out.
Antiferroelectricity is a property of a material, and it can appear or disappear (more generally, strengthen or weaken) depending on temperature, pressure, external electric field, growth method, and other parameters.
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