Ultrafast Photovoltaic Response in Ferroelectric Nanolayers

Summary, in English

We show that light drives large-amplitude structural changes in thin films of the prototypical ferroelectric PbTiO3 via direct coupling to its intrinsic photovoltaic response. Using time-resolved x-ray scattering to visualize atomic displacements on femtosecond time scales, photoinduced changes in the unit-cell tetragonality are observed. These are driven by the motion of photogenerated free charges within the ferroelectric and can be simply explained by a model including both shift and screening currents, associated with the displacement of electrons first antiparallel to and then parallel to the ferroelectric polarization direction.

• Author: Dan Daranciang; Matthew J. Highland; Haidan Wen; Steve M. Young; Nathaniel C. Brandt; Harold Y. Hwang; Michael Vattilana; Matthieu Nicoul; Florian Quirin; John Goodfellow; Tingting Qi; Ilya Grinberg; David M. Fritz; Marco Cammarata; Diling Zhu; Henrik T. Lemke; Donald A. Walko; Eric M. Dufresne; Yuelin Li; Jörgen Larsson; David A. Reis; Klaus Sokolowski-Tinten; Keith A. Nelson; Andrew M. Rappe; Paul H. Fuoss; G. Brian Stephenson; Aaron M. Lindenberg
• Department/s: Atomic Physics
• Publishing year: 2012
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 108
• Issue: 8
• Full text: - 882 kB; Download statistics
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.087601
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Topic: Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1079-7114