Observation of polarization density waves in SrTiO3
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. Despite exhibiting ferroelectric features, SrTiO3 fails to display long-range polar order at low temperatures due to quantum fluctuations. An ultrafast X-ray diffraction experiment now probes polar dynamics of this material at the nanometre scale.
Authors
- Steven L. Johnson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6074-4894)
- A. Cavalleri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3143-0850)
- Matthias C. Hoffmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3596-9853)
- Takahiro Sato (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2202-0910)
- Gilberto de la Peña Muñoz
- Keith A. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7804-5418)
- David Reis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1576-7533)
- Quynh L. Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5897-8576)
- Gal Orenstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0506-0446)
- Diling Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4941-9799)
- Andrew M. Rappe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4620-6496)
- Ryan A. Duncan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2831-8099)
- Riccardo Comin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1069-9973)
- M. Först (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8057-4826)
- Ankit S. Disa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7762-3244)
- Viktor Krapivin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1454-8232)
- Zhuquan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9569-9800)
- Matteo Mitrano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0102-0391)
- Mariano Trigo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4655-188X)
- Samuel W. Teitelbaum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0812-9832)
- M. P. M. Dean (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5139-3543)
- Hasan Yavaş (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8940-3556)
- Jade Stanton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3469-3704)
- Jiahao Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8284-8122)
- Yijing Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5453-7722)
- Patrick L. Kramer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8589-1540)
Institutions
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (CH)
- Harvard University Press (US)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Paul Scherrer Institute (CH)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Linac Coherent Light Source (US)
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (DE)
- Arizona State University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Physics
- Published
- 2025-04-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-02874-0
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.62