This study investigates grain growth in the perovskite oxide strontium titanate in an electric field. The seeded polycrystal technique was chosen as it provides a sensitive and controlled setup to evaluate the impact of different parameters on grain growth due to the well‐defined driving force for grain growth. Current blocking electrodes were used to prevent Joule heating. The results show faster grain growth, and thus, higher grain‐boundary mobility at the negative electrode. It is argued that the electric field causes point‐defect redistribution, resulting in a higher oxygen vacancy concentration at the negative electrode. The local oxygen vacancy concentration is suggested to affect the space‐charge potential at the grain boundaries. A thermodynamic treatment of the grain‐boundary potential at a grain boundary without field shows that for a high oxygen vacancy concentration less space‐charge and less accumulation of cationic defects to the boundary occurs. Therefore, at the negative electrode, a higher oxygen vacancy concentration results in less space‐charge and less accumulation of cationic defects. The lower degree of defect accumulation requires less diffusion of segregated defects during grain‐boundary migration, so that at the negative electrode faster grain growth is expected, as found in the experiments.

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Herein, the impact of AC and DC electric fields on microstructure evolution in strontium titanate is investigated. The focus is on nonthermal effects by using current‐blocking electrodes. The seeded polycrystal technique allows investigating the impact of a DC electric field on grain growth for different grain‐boundary orientations and the impact of the surrounding atmosphere. As in previous studies, faster grain growth is observed at the negative electrode. This effect is stronger for the (100) orientation and in reducing atmosphere. In AC electric field at 1450 °C, a low‐enough frequency results in faster grain growth at both electrodes. These findings agree well with previous studies, where an electromigration of oxygen vacancies is found to cause a local reduction at the negative electrode, resulting in less space charge, less cationic segregation, and a higher grain‐boundary mobility. At 1500 °C, AC electric fields are found to cause a complete grain growth stagnation at very small grain sizes. This behavior is unexpected; the physical reasons are not clear. Herein, a brief study of sintering in DC electric field reveals slightly faster sintering if a field is applied.