Fabrizio Carbone and co-workers: Ultrafast structural and electronic dynamics of the metallic phase

January 21, 2014

Ultrafast structural and electronic dynamics of the metallic phase in a layered manganite.

The transition between different states in manganites can be driven by various external stimuli. Controlling these transitions with light opens the possibility to investigate the microscopic path through which they evolve. We performed femtosecond (fs) transmission electron microscopy on a bi-layered manganite to study its response to ultrafast photoexcitation. We show that a photoinduced temperature jump launches a pressure wave that provokes coherent oscillations of the lattice parameters, detected via ultrafast electron diffraction. Their impact on the electronic structure are monitored via ultrafast electron energy loss spectroscopy, revealing the dynamics of the different orbitals in response to specific structural distortions.
These results clarify the evolution of the electronic structure of this material in response to the structural distortions that can be induced by laser pulses. They provide novel quantitative information (such as the Young modulus) and give a broad and direct description of the interplay between orbitals and lattice, which is ultimately what rules the phase diagram of these type of materials.

Piazza, L., Ma, C., Yang, H.X., Mann, A., Zhu, Y., Li, J.Q., and Carbone, F. (2014) Ultrafast structural and electronic dynamics of the metallic phase in a layered manganite. Struct Dynam 1, 014501 (10.1063/1.4835116).




back <<