Roman Mankowsky is awarded the Reimar Lüst Grant
of the Max Planck Society for his PhD studies
Read moreMarta Gibert receives SNSF Professorship
for her project on Functional oxide heterostructures by design.
Read morePublication Detail / Abstract
Ultrafast Reversal of the Ferroelectric Polarization
published in PRL on May 10, 2017
> Full text via publisher
We report on the demonstration of ultrafast optical reversal of the ferroelectric polarization in LiNbO3. Rather than driving the ferroelectric mode directly, we couple to it indirectly by resonant excitation of an auxiliary high-frequency phonon mode with femtosecond midinfrared pulses. Because of strong anharmonic coupling between these modes, the atoms are directionally displaced along the ferroelectric mode and the polarization is transiently reversed, as revealed by time-resolved, phase-sensitive, second-harmonic generation. This reversal can be induced in both directions, a key prerequisite for practical applications.
