Observation of polarization density waves in SrTiO3

被引：1

作者：

Orenstein, Gal ^{[1
,2
]}

Krapivin, Viktor ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Huang, Yijing ^{[4
]}

Zhang, Zhuquan ^{[5
]}

de la Pena Munoz, Gilberto ^{[1
,2
]}

Duncan, Ryan A. ^{[1
,2
]}

Nguyen, Quynh ^{[1
,2
]}

Stanton, Jade ^{[3
,6
]}

Teitelbaum, Samuel ^{[6
]}

Yavas, Hasan ^{[7
]}

Sato, Takahiro ^{[7
]}

Hoffmann, Matthias C. ^{[7
]}

Kramer, Patrick ^{[7
]}

Zhang, Jiahao ^{[8
]}

Cavalleri, Andrea ^{[9
]}

Comin, Riccardo ^{[10
]}

Dean, Mark P. M. ^{[11
]}

Disa, Ankit S. ^{[12
]}

Foerst, Michael ^{[9
]}

Johnson, Steven L. ^{[13
,14
]}

Mitrano, Matteo ^{[15
]}

Rappe, Andrew M. ^{[8
]}

Reis, David ^{[1
,2
,3
]}

Zhu, Diling ^{[7
]}

Nelson, Keith A. ^{[5
]}

Trigo, Mariano ^{[1
,2
]}

机构：

[1] SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab, Stanford PULSE Inst, Menlo Pk, CA USA

[2] SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab, Stanford Inst Mat & Energy Sci, Menlo Pk, CA USA

[3] Stanford Univ, Dept Appl Phys, Stanford, CA USA

[4] Univ Illinois, Dept Phys, Urbana, IL USA

[5] MIT, Dept Chem, Cambridge, MA USA

[6] Arizona State Univ, Dept Phys, Tempe, AZ USA

[7] SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab, Linac Coherent Light Source, Menlo Pk, CA USA

[8] Univ Penn, Dept Mat Sci & Engn, Philadelphia, PA USA

[9] Max Planck Inst Struct & Dynam Matter, Hamburg, Germany

[10] MIT, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA USA

[11] Brookhaven Natl Lab, Condensed Matter Phys & Mat Sci Dept, Upton, NY USA

[12] Cornell Univ, Sch Appl & Engn Phys, Ithaca, NY USA

[13] Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Inst Quantum Elect, Phys Dept, Zurich, Switzerland

[14] Paul Scherrer Inst, SwissFEL, Villigen, Switzerland

[15] Harvard Univ, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA USA

来源：

NATURE PHYSICS | 2025年 / 21卷 / 06期

基金：

瑞士国家科学基金会;

关键词：

STRONTIUM-TITANATE; PHASE-TRANSITION; FERROELECTRICITY; SCATTERING; PHONON; GENERATION; DYNAMICS; DRIVEN; PULSES;

D O I：

10.1038/s41567-025-02874-0

中图分类号：

O4 [物理学];

学科分类号：

0702 ;

摘要：

The nature of the incipient ferroelectric transition in SrTiO3 has been a long-standing puzzle in condensed matter physics. One explanation involves the competition between ferroelectricity and an instability characterized by the mesoscopic modulation of the polarization. These polarization density waves, which should intensify near the quantum critical point, break local inversion symmetry and are difficult to characterize with conventional X-ray scattering methods. Here we probe inversion symmetry breaking at finite momenta and visualize the instability of the polarization at the nanometre scale in SrTiO3 by combining a femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser with terahertz coherent control methods. We found polar-acoustic collective modes that are soft, particularly at the tens of nanometre scale. These precursor collective excitations provide evidence for the conjectured mesoscopic-modulated phase in SrTiO3.

引用

页码：1026 / 1026

页数：6

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