Ultrafast photoinduced phase transition in lead-free ferroelectric KTN

The project aims to investigate ultrafast phase changes in application relevant lead-free ferroelectric phase change materials (PCM). Devices based on well-known PCM, such as chalcogenides, show characteristic switching times in the order of hundreds of ns. The project will focus on the physics of ultrafast optically induced phase transitions on the picosecond time scale in ferroelectric thin films of KTN (= K(Nb1-xTax)O3). The idea is to optically induce a phase transition into a stable or meta-stable intermediate state and investigate the dynamics and characteristic switching time between structural phases with different crystal symmetries.