Conductive domain walls in ferroelectrics as tunable coherent and chiral THz radiation source

Abstract

THz emission associated with currents in conductive domain walls in BiFeO3 following infrared radiation is theoretically investigated. This experimentally observed phenomenon is explained by the domain wall stripes acting as metallic resonators, with the oscillating charge accumulation being at the domain wall edges. The charge oscillation frequency is related to the plasma frequency inside the domain wall. The value of plasma frequency determines both the frequency and the amplitude of the emission emanating from the BiFeO3 sample. We show that for certain geometries of the domain wall structure and for specific polarization of the incident pulse, the THz emission embodies a non-vanishing chirality.