Coupling of GHz phonons to ferroelastic domain walls in SrTiO3.

We study the linear and nonlinear acoustic response of SrTiO3 across its ferroelastic transition at Ta=105 K by time domain Brillouin scattering. Above Ta we observe that for a strain amplitude of ∼0.18% the sound velocity for compressive strain exceeds the tensile strain velocity by 3%. Below Ta we find a giant slowing down of the sound velocity by 12% and attribute this to the coupling of GHz phonons to ferroelastic twin domain walls. We propose a new mechanism for this coupling on the ultrafast time scale, providing an important new test ground for theories used to simulate atomic motion in domain forming crystals.

Brillouin scattering of visible and hard X-ray photons from optically synthesized phonon wavepackets.

We monitor how destructive interference of undesired phonon frequency components shapes a quasi-monochromatic hypersound wavepacket spectrum during its local real-time preparation by a nanometric transducer and follow the subsequent decay by nonlinear coupling. We prove each frequency component of an optical supercontinuum probe to be sensitive to one particular phonon wavevector in bulk material and cross-check this by ultrafast x-ray diffraction experiments with direct access to the lattice dynamics. Establishing reliable experimental techniques with direct access to the transient spectrum of the excitation is crucial for the interpretation in strongly nonlinear regimes, such as soliton formation.

Observing backfolded and unfolded acoustic phonons by broadband optical light scattering.

We use broadband time domain Brillouin scattering to observe coherently generated phonon modes in bulk and nanolayered samples. We transform the measured transients into a frequency-wavevector diagram and compare the resulting dispersion relations to calculations. The detected oscillation amplitude depends on the occupation of phonon modes induced by the pump pulse. For nanolayered samples with an appropriately large period, the whole wavevector range of the Brillouin zone becomes observable by broadband optical light scattering. The backfolded modes vanish, when the excitation has passed the nanolayers and propagates through the substrate underneath.