Related papers: Ultrafast light-induced shear strain probed by tim…
Piezoelectrics interconvert mechanical energy and electric charge and are widely used in actuators and sensors. The best performing materials are ferroelectrics at a morphotropic phase boundary (MPB), where several phases can intimately…
We grew SrTiO3 on SrTiO3 (001) by pulsed laser deposition, using x-ray scattering to monitor the growth in real time. The time-resolved small angle scattering exhibits a well-defined length scale associated with the spacing between unit…
The coupling between light and strain gradients shows two kinds of effects: light enhanced flexoelectricity (photoflexoelectricity) and gradient enhanced photovoltage (flexophotovoltage). Although these effects originate from fundamentally…
The origin of frequently observed ultrahigh electric-induced longitudinal strain, ranging from 1% to 26%, remains an open question. Recent evidence suggests that this phenomenon is linked to the bending deformation of samples, but the…
Elastic strain is potentially an important approach in tuning the properties of the improperly multiferroic hexagonal ferrites, the details of which have however been elusive due to the experimental difficulties. Employing the method of…
Strain in two-dimensional (2D) materials has attracted particular attention owing to the remarkable modification of electronic and optical properties. However, emergent electromechanical phenomena and hidden mechanisms, such as…
Detection of local strain at the nanometer scale with high sensitivity remains challenging. Here we report near-field infrared nano-imaging of local strains in bilayer graphene through probing strain-induced shifts of phonon frequency. As a…
The use of strongly bent crystals in spectrometers for pulses of a hard x-ray free-electron laser is explored theoretically. Diffraction is calculated in both dynamical and kinematical theories. It is shown that diffraction can be treated…
Electron diffraction through a thin patterned silicon membrane can be used to create complex spatial modulations in electron distributions by varying the intensity of different reflections using parameters such as crystallographic…
We use an x-ray free-electron laser to study the ultrafast lattice dynamics following above band-gap photoexcitation of the incipient ferroelectric potassium-tantalate, \kto. % We use ultrafast near-UV (central wavelength 266\,nm and 50 fs…
We experimentally probe complex bio-photonic architecture of microstructures on the transparent insect wings by a simple, non-invasive, real time optical technique. A stable and reproducible far-field diffraction pattern in transmission was…
The spatiotemporal response of crystals in x-ray Bragg diffraction resulting from excitation by an ultra-short, laterally confined x-ray pulse is studied theoretically. The theory presents an extension of the analysis in symmetric…
Dark-field x-ray microscopy utilizes Bragg diffraction to collect full-field x-ray images of "mesoscale" structure of ordered materials. Information regarding the structural heterogeneities and their physical implications is gleaned through…
We analytically and numerically study the temporal intensity pattern emerging from the linear or nonlinear evolutions of a single or double phase jump in an optical fiber. The results are interpreted in terms of interferences of the…
Strain engineering is widely used in material science to tune the (opto-)electronic properties of materials and enhance the performance of devices. Two-dimensional atomic crystals are a versatile playground to study the influence of strain,…
Coherent acoustic phonons, whose damping sets the upper bound of quality factors in acoustic resonators, play a critical role in advanced telecommunication and quantum information technologies. Yet, probing their decay in the GHz regime…
Free-electron lasers (FELs) can now generate temporally short, high power x-ray pulses of unprecedented brightness, even though their longitudinal coherence is relatively poor. The longitudinal coherence can be potentially improved by…
The particle-like nature of light becomes evident in the photon statistics of fluorescence of single quantum systems as photon antibunching. In multichromophoric systems, exciton diffusion and subsequent annihilation occurs. These processes…
Reversible control of the topological invariants from nontrivial to trivial states has fundamental implications for quantum information processors and spintronics, by realizing of an on/off switch for robust and dissipationless…
We measure the transient strain profile in a nanoscale multilayer system composed of Yttrium, Holmium and Niobium after laser excitation using ultrafast X-ray diffraction. The strain propagation through each layer is determined by transient…