Interactive phononic matter: reshaping crystal landscapes for ultrafast switching

Descripción del proyecto

La «alquimia» moderna podría transformar las propiedades de los materiales cristalinos

La interacción entre la luz y la materia en la intersección entre la óptica, el magnetismo y los cristales es un campo de investigación dinámico responsable de tecnologías emergentes en ámbitos como las comunicaciones ópticas, la computación cuántica, la biomedicina y la energía. En el proyecto INTERPHON, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se pretende manipular y controlar el orden magnético y electrónico de materiales mediante excitación ultrarrápida utilizando la red cristalina como mediador. Integrando la óptica no lineal, la fonónica y el magnetismo ultrarrápido, el equipo utilizará un láser de electrones libres para emitir pulsos cortos e intensos en el rango de frecuencias del infrarrojo al terahercio, a las frecuencias de los fonones ópticos. En INTERPHON se prevé favorecer la manipulación ultrarrápida y energéticamente eficiente de los materiales cristalinos en un paradigma universal que aproveche la red presente en todos ellos.

Objetivo

For almost two millennia people are looking for the philosophers' stone, dreaming to be able to change material properties at will. While turning lead to gold might just have become a reality, even though only a few atoms at a time, in a broader sense we are still very far from this.
To make this dream come true, INTERPHON challenges the existing ideas and understanding of the interactions between light and matter, developing a research area at the junction of nonlinear optics, phononics and ultrafast magnetism, and aiming at ultrafast and energy-efficient manipulation of materials by using the crystal lattice as a mediator. Thus, glass can be made into a magnet; antiferromagnets to ferromagnets, paraelectric into ferroelectric, by exciting matter with long-wavelength light.
This fundamentally new approach to steering magnetic and electric order by ultrafast excitation at the frequencies of optical phonons has been made possible by my group’s latest work. It will involve a controlled deformation of the crystal lattice and is non-thermal (thus energy-efficient), precessional (hence ultrafast) and potentially universal (since the lattice is found in all crystalline materials). Interestingly, it does not involve any absorption of light by the very same phonons! Instead, light will communicate with matter in an interactive way, so that matter reciprocates by changing the very resonance used for excitation. To realize this, INTERPHON will develop novel research methods using short and intense pulses of an infrared-to-THz-range free electron laser.
Therefore, gaining control over the microscopic crystalline lattice could actually be the key to realizing a phononic philosopher’s stone, capable of inducing ultrafast phase transitions and permanently switching macroscopic order.
When successful, this will strongly advance the frontiers of knowledge in both out-of-equilibrium physics of solids and nonlinear optics, with a potential for novel emerging technologies.