We report the observation of an enhanced temperature sensitivity for transient repoling near to the domain freezing temperature in ferroelectric strontium barium niobate. This work has important consequences for the use of optical fields to control domain patterns in such materials. We model the repoling characteristics of the material using a Vogel–Fulcher type response and present results showing the degree of repoling as a function of field and temperature, for short duration repoling times. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.