Evidence for competing orderings in strontium titanate from hyper-Raman scattering spectroscopy

Abstract

The frequencies of the softest polar optic phonons of tetragonal SrTiO3 are accurately determined using high-resolution hyper-Raman spectroscopy on oriented-domain crystals. The splitting of the polar soft mode in the tetragonal phase is quantitatively related to the 105 K structural transition, i.e., to the rotation of the oxygen octahedra and to the associated macroscopic strains. In addition to quantum fluctuations, these tetragonal distortions are found to be essential in preventing the ferroelectric transition.