Depolarization excitation as an electric field-induced first-order phase transition

We consider a bistable system undergoing a first-order phase transition from the state with a larger polarization, excited state, to the state with a smaller polarization, equilibrium state, induced by an applied electric field in the presence of an internal electric field. A motion of the polarization kink has been obtained by using an exact solution of the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation describing the propagation of the interphase boundary between the two states of the system. The proposed model can be used for the explanation of generation and propagation of traveling waves of excitation in polarizable media, in particular, action potentials in axon membranes, and for the description of motion of interphase boundaries in `divertible' ferroelectrics, lacking a center of symmetry.