Nature Communications (Jul 2016)

The origin of incipient ferroelectricity in lead telluride

  • M. P. Jiang,
  • M. Trigo,
  • I. Savić,
  • S. Fahy,
  • É. D. Murray,
  • C. Bray,
  • J. Clark,
  • T. Henighan,
  • M. Kozina,
  • M. Chollet,
  • J. M. Glownia,
  • M. C. Hoffmann,
  • D. Zhu,
  • O. Delaire,
  • A. F. May,
  • B. C. Sales,
  • A. M. Lindenberg,
  • P. Zalden,
  • T. Sato,
  • R. Merlin,
  • D. A. Reis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12291
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

Read online

Group IV–VI materials often exist in a state near an electronic or structural phase transition. Here, the authors use ultrafast X-ray scattering to show that coupling of band-edge electrons and phonons causes the ferroelectric instability observed in lead telluride.