Laurent Bellaiche1
University of Arkansas1
Ultrafast light-matter interactions present a promising route to control ferroelectric polarization at room temperature, which is an exciting idea for designing novel ferroelectric-based devices. One emergent light-induced technique for controlling polarization consists in anharmonically driving a high-frequency phonon mode through its coupling to the polarization. A step towards such control has been recently accomplished, but the polarization has been reported to be only partially reversed and for a short lapse of time. Such transient partial reversal is not currently understood, and it is presently unclear if a full control of a polarization, by, e.g., fully reversing it or even making it adopt different directions (thus inducing structural phase transitions), can be achieved by activating the high-frequency phonon mode via terahertz pulse stimuli. Here, by means of realistic simulations of a prototypical ferroelectric, we reveal and explain (1) why a transient partial reversal has been observed, and (2) how to deterministically control the ferroelectric polarization thanks to these stimuli. Such results can provide guidance for realizing original ultrafast optoferroic devices.<br/>Acknowledgments. The work is supported by ONR under Grant No. N00014-17-1-2818 (P.C. and L.B.), the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) grant no. N00014-20-1-2834 from the Department of Defense (H.J.Z and L.B.) and the ARO Grant No. W911NF-21-1-0113 (L.B.). C.P. thanks the support from a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the ``Investissements d’Avenir’’ program (Labex NanoSaclay, reference: ANR-10-LABX-0035). J.I. is funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund through Grant FNR/C18/MS/12705883/REFOX. Simulations were done using the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center.