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Equilibrium nonlinear phononics by electric field fluctuations of terahertz cavities

Emil Viñas Boström1,2,*,†, Marios H. Michael1,*,‡, Christian Eckhardt1, and Angel Rubio1,2,3,§

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: emil.bostrom@mpsd.mpg.de
  • ‡Contact author: marios.michael@mpsd.mpg.de
  • §Contact author: angel.rubio@mpsd.mpg.de
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033163 – Published 15 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fqq1-9f52

Abstract

Selective excitation of vibrational modes using strong laser pulses has emerged as a powerful material engineering paradigm. However, to have deterministic control over material properties for device applications, an analogous scheme without drive, operating in thermal equilibrium, is desirable. We here propose such an equilibrium analog of the light-driven paradigm, leveraging the strong coupling between lattice degrees of freedom and the quantum fluctuations of the electric field of a THz microcavity. We demonstrate this approach by showing, using ab initio data, how electric field fluctuations can induce a subdominant ferromagnetic order, on top of the dominant zigzag antiferromagnet order, in FePS3 close to its Néel temperature.

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References (39)

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033163– Published 15 August, 2025
  • Received 27 September 2024
  • Revised 2 April 2025
  • Accepted 13 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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