  Ferroelectrics are multifunctional smart materials finding applications in
sensor technology, micromechanical actuation, digital information storage etc.
Their most fundamental property is the ability of polarization switching under
applied electric field. In particular, understanding of switching kinetics is
essential for digital information storage. In this regard, scaling properties
of the temporal polarization response are well-known for 180{\deg}-switching
processes in ferroelectrics characterized by a unique field-dependent local
switching time. Unexpectedly, these properties were now observed in multiaxial
polycrystalline ferroelectrics, exhibiting a number of parallel and sequential
non-180{\deg}-switching processes with distinct switching times. This behaviour
can be explained by a combination of the multistep stochastic mechanism and the
inhomogeneous field mechanism models of polarization reversal. Scaling
properties are predicted for polycrystalline ferroelectrics of tetragonal,
rhombohedral and orthorhombic symmetries and exemplarily demonstrated by
measurements of polarization kinetics in (K,Na)NbO3-based ferroelectric ceramic
over a timescale of 7 orders of magnitude. Dynamic scaling properties allow
insight into the microscopic switching mechanisms, on the one hand, and into
statistical material characteristics, on the other hand, providing thereby the
description of temporal polarization with high accuracy. The gained deeper
insight into the mechanisms of multistep polarization switching is crucial for
future ultrafast and multilevel digital information storage.
