Acoustic confinement phenomena in oxide multifunctional nanophononic devices

Abstract

The engineering of phononic resonances in ferroelectric structures appears as a new knob in the designand realization of novel multifunctional devices. In this work we experimentally study phononicresonators based on insulating (BaTiO 3 , SrTiO 3 ) and metallic (SrRuO 3 ) oxides. We experimentallydemonstrate the confinement of acoustic waves in the 100 GHz frequency range in a phonon nanocavity,the time and spatial beatings resulting from the coupling of two different hybrid nanocavities forming anacoustic molecule, and the direct measurement of Bloch-like oscillations of acoustic phonons in a systemformed by 10 coupled resonators. By means of coherent phonon generation techniques we study thephonon dynamics directly in the time-domain. The metallic SrRuO 3 introduces a local phonon generatorand transducer that allows for the spatial, spectral and time-domain monitoring of the complex generatedwaves. Our results introduce ferroelectric cavity systems as a new tool for the study of complex wavelocalization phenomena at the nanoscale.