Elastic Tuning and Response of Electronic Order
New physical phenomena have emerged from a particularly strong coupling between a materials’ elasticity and its symmetry-broken electronic quantum phases. Examples are reversible superelasticity with large recoverable strain in iron-based materials, strong nonlinear elastic response with violation of Hooke’s law and critical elasticity in pressurized organic charge-transfer salts, a doubling of the superconducting transition temperature in strained strontium ruthenate, strain-induced charge order in cuprate superconductors, as well as nematicity in iron-based superconductors. Static and dynamic strain manipulation has emerged as a new knob to tune and shape a material’s electronic properties.