Metastable ferroelectricity in optically strained SrTiO 3
- 14 June 2019
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 364 (6445), 1075-1079
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw4911
Abstract
Fluctuating orders in solids are generally considered high-temperature precursors of broken symmetry phases. However, in some cases, these fluctuations persist to zero temperature and prevent the emergence of long-range order. Strontium titanate (SrTiO3) is a quantum paraelectric in which dipolar fluctuations grow upon cooling, although a long-range ferroelectric order never sets in. Here, we show that optical excitation of lattice vibrations can induce polar order. This metastable polar phase, observed up to temperatures exceeding 290 kelvin, persists for hours after the optical pump is interrupted. Furthermore, hardening of a low-frequency vibration points to a photoinduced ferroelectric phase transition, with a spatial domain distribution suggestive of a photoflexoelectric coupling.Keywords
Funding Information
- European Research Council (319286)
This publication has 47 references indexed in Scilit:
- Second harmonic generation from tetragonal centrosymmetric crystalsPhysical Review B, 2009
- Phase transitions and domain structures in strained pseudocubic (100)thin filmsPhysical Review B, 2006
- Room-temperature ferroelectricity in strained SrTiO3Nature, 2004
- Evidence for competing orderings in strontium titanate from hyper-Raman scattering spectroscopyEurophysics Letters, 2000
- Nonlinear self-phase matching of optical second harmonic generation in lithium niobateApplied Physics Letters, 1996
- Raman scattering of ferroelectric Sr1-xCaxTiO3, x=0.007Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 1994
- Indication for a novel phase in the quantum paraelectric regime of SrTiO3Zeitschrift für Physik B Condensed Matter, 1991
- : An Quantum Ferroelectric with Transition to RandomnessPhysical Review Letters, 1984
- SrTi: An intrinsic quantum paraelectric below 4 KPhysical Review B, 1979
- Dielectric Properties of SrTiat Low TemperaturesPhysical Review Letters, 1971