Cavity-engineered ferroelectricity in SrTiO_3

Abstract

Interfacing quantum materials with photonic cavity architectures is at the vanguard of materials engineering. The structured electromagnetic fluctuations of a dark cavity environment can renormalize fundamental thermodynamical material properties and energy scales, holding promise to create a rich ecosystem of cavity-induced ground states and functionalities absent in the bare material. However, direct experimental demonstrations that cavity coupling can stabilize or enhance genuinely new phases of matter have remained scarce. In this work, we establish the presence of cavity-induced and cavity-enhanced ferroelectric phases in free-standing SrTiO₃ membranes coupled to dark THz-frequency photonic crystal cavities. Using THz spectroscopy, we observe ultrastrong coupling (USC) between the ferroelectric soft mode in SrTiO₃ and the cavity resonance. The structural response of SrTiO₃ to this USC is measured via second harmonic generation imaging, which reveals a substantial (greater than 400%) enhancement of signal in the cavity environment and a distinct modification of the crystalline symmetry, indicating the onset and enhancement of ferroelectricity. We interpret these observations as resulting from renormalized piezoelectric and flexoelectric couplings, which in turn arise from the cavity-modified dielectric environment. This interpretation is supported with microscopic modeling via DFT-based multi-scale dynamics simulations and by macroscopic Ginzburg-Landau theory. Altogether, our experimental and theoretical results firmly confirm that cavity engineering can indeed be used to create new ground states in materials and enhance existing ones. This work establishes a new paradigm for materials engineering with direct applications for quantum transduction, quantum sensing, and nonlinear integrated photonics.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{mehio2026cavityengineered,
  title = {{Cavity-engineered ferroelectricity in SrTiO$_3$}},
  author = {Omar Mehio and Sylvia Griffitt and Andrew Pierce and Emil V. Bostrom and Hanbyul Kim and Dylan P. Sotir and Darrell G. Schlom and Simone Latini and Kin Fai Mak and Jie Shan and Dongbin Shin and Angel Rubio and Ankit S. Disa},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.40756},
  eprint = {2610.40756},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.40756},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Cavity-engineered ferroelectricity in SrTiO_3
AU  - Omar Mehio
AU  - Sylvia Griffitt
AU  - Andrew Pierce
AU  - Emil V. Bostrom
AU  - Hanbyul Kim
AU  - Dylan P. Sotir
AU  - Darrell G. Schlom
AU  - Simone Latini
AU  - Kin Fai Mak
AU  - Jie Shan
AU  - Dongbin Shin
AU  - Angel Rubio
AU  - Ankit S. Disa
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/29
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.40756
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.40756
AB  - Interfacing quantum materials with photonic cavity architectures is at the vanguard of materials engineering. The structured electromagnetic fluctuations of a dark cavity environment can renormalize fundamental thermodynamical material properties and energy scales, holding promise to create a rich ecosystem of cavity-induced ground states and functionalities absent in the bare material. However, direct experimental demonstrations that cavity coupling can stabilize or enhance genuinely new phases of matter have remained scarce. In this work, we establish the presence of cavity-induced and cavity-enhanced ferroelectric phases in free-standing SrTiO_3 membranes coupled to dark THz-frequency photonic crystal cavities. Using THz spectroscopy, we observe ultrastrong coupling (USC) between the ferroelectric soft mode in SrTiO_3 and the cavity resonance. The structural response of SrTiO_3 to this USC is measured via second harmonic generation imaging, which reveals a substantial (greater than 400%) enhancement of signal in the cavity environment and a distinct modification of the crystalline symmetry, indicating the onset and enhancement of ferroelectricity. We interpret these observations as resulting from renormalized piezoelectric and flexoelectric couplings, which in turn arise from the cavity-modified dielectric environment. This interpretation is supported with microscopic modeling via DFT-based multi-scale dynamics simulations and by macroscopic Ginzburg-Landau theory. Altogether, our experimental and theoretical results firmly confirm that cavity engineering can indeed be used to create new ground states in materials and enhance existing ones. This work establishes a new paradigm for materials engineering with direct applications for quantum transduction, quantum sensing, and nonlinear integrated photonics.
ER  -

Cavity-engineered ferroelectricity in SrTiO₃

Abstract

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