Ultrafast Structural Phase Transition Driven by Photoinduced Melting of Charge and Orbital Order

P. Beaud, S. L. Johnson, E. Vorobeva, U. Staub, R. A. De Souza, C. J. Milne, Q. X. Jia, and G. Ingold
Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 155702 – Published 9 October 2009

Abstract

We use femtosecond x-ray diffraction to probe directly the structural dynamics of a charge ordered and orbitally ordered thin film of La0.42Ca0.58MnO3 initiated by an ultrafast optical pulse. At low excitation fluences we observe the displacive excitation of a coherent optical Ag phonon. Under high excitation conditions we observe a complete phase transition within 1 ps via the disappearance of a superlattice reflection. The initial step of the phase transition occurs on a time scale significantly faster than the 200 fs time resolution of our experiment.

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  • Received 7 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.155702

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

P. Beaud1,*, S. L. Johnson1, E. Vorobeva1, U. Staub1, R. A. De Souza1, C. J. Milne2, Q. X. Jia3, and G. Ingold1

  • 1Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
  • 2Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Ultrarapide, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

  • *paul.beaud@psi.ch

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Vol. 103, Iss. 15 — 9 October 2009

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