Light-driven motion of charged domain walls in isolated ferroelectrics

Light-induced ferroelectric domain wall motion turns out to be a promising phenomenon to develop new photocontrolled devices. However, the physical origin of this light-matter coupling when material is irradiated with visible light remains unclear. Here, a phenomenological model predicting the motion of charged domain walls (CDWs) is developed. The photoinduced electronic reconstruction mechanism is proposed as the primary absorption mechanism, leading to a linear dependence for the polarization perturbation with the light intensity. Domain wall motion is then driven by the energetic difference between domains in a CDW array, such that the macroscopic polarization can be easily tuned.