The Born effective charge ${\mathrm{Z}}^{\mathrm{*}}$ and dielectric tensor ${\mathrm{\epsilon }}_{\mathrm{\infty }}$ of ${\mathrm{KNbO}}_3$ are found to be very sensitive to the atomic geometry, changing by as much as 27% between the paraelectric cubic and ferroelectric tetragonal and rhombohedral phases. Subtracting the bare ionic contribution reveals changes of the dynamic component of ${\mathrm{Z}}^{\mathrm{*}}$ as large as 50%, for atomic displacements that are typically only a few percent of the lattice constant. ${\mathrm{Z}}^{\mathrm{*}}$, ${\mathrm{\epsilon }}_{\mathrm{\infty }}$, and all phonon frequencies at the Brillouin zone center were calculated using the ab initio linearized augmented plane-wave linear response method with respect to the reference cubic, experimental tetragonal, and theoretically determined rhombohedral ground-state structures. The ground-state rhombohedral structure of ${\mathrm{KNbO}}_3$ was determined by minimizing the forces on the relaxed atoms. In contrast to the cubic structure, all zone-center phonon modes of the rhombohedral structure are stable, and their frequencies are in good agreement with experiment. In the tetragonal phase, one of the soft zone-center modes in the cubic phase is stablized. In view of the small atomic displacements involved in the ferroelectric transitions, it is evident that not only the soft-mode frequencies but also the Born effective charge and dielectric constants are very sensitive to the atomic geometry. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

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