Terahertz-field activation of polar skyrons
Unraveling collective modes arising from coupled degrees of freedom is crucial for understanding complex interactions in solids and developing new functionalities. Unique collective behaviors emerge when two degrees of freedom, ordered on distinct length scales, interact. Polar skyrmions, three-dimensional electric polarization textures in ferroelectric superlattices, disrupt the lattice continuity at the nanometer scale with nontrivial topology, leading to previously unexplored collective modes. Here, using terahertz-field excitation and femtosecond x-ray diffraction, we discover subterahertz collective modes, dubbed "skyrons", which appear as swirling patterns of atomic displacements functioning as atomic-scale gearsets. The key to activating skyrons is the use of the THz field that couples primarily to skyrmion domain walls. Momentum-resolved time-domain measurements of diffuse scattering reveal an avoided crossing in the dispersion relation of skyrons. Atomistic simulations and dynamical phase-field modeling provide microscopic insights into the three-dimensional crystallographic and polarization dynamics. The amplitude and dispersion of skyrons are demonstrated to be controlled by sample temperature and electric-field bias. The discovery of skyrons and their coupling with terahertz fields opens avenues for ultrafast control of topological polar structures.
Authors
- Mauro A. P. Gonçalves (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2951-8394)
- Tiannan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2071-4778)
- R. Ramesh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0524-1332)
- Sanghoon Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3493-1850)
- Venkatraman Gopalan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6866-3677)
- Matthias C. Hoffmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3596-9853)
- Takahiro Sato (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2202-0910)
- Yanwen Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5926-6565)
- S. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2937-6074)
- Yue Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-158X)
- Sujit Das (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9823-0207)
- Quynh L. Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5897-8576)
- Patrick L. Kramer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8589-1540)
- Lane W. Martin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1889-2513)
- Margaret R. McCarter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2255-3306)
- Upal Saha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4398-767X)
- J. W. Freeland (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4814-5308)
- J. Kulda
- Vladimir A. Stoica (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2734-7819)
- J. Hlinka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9293-4462)
- Marek Paściak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3902-8874)
- Aaron M. Lindenberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3233-7161)
- Haidan Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5427-175X)
- Anudeep Mangu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5596-8348)
- Long‐Qing Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3359-3781)
- Zhan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7618-6134)
- Huaiyu Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7555-1198)
- Cheng Dai
- Diling Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5015-4791)
Institutions
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Institut Laue-Langevin (FR)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Linac Coherent Light Source (US)
- Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IN)
- Rice University (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-10-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64033-6
- Primary Topic
- Acoustic Wave Resonator Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Indian Institute of Science
- European Commission
- Grantová Agentura České Republiky
- Ministry of Education, India
- Office of Science
- Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- Science and Engineering Research Board
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Army Research Office
- Argonne National Laboratory
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory