1 research outputs found
All-optical seeding of a light-induced phase transition with correlated disorder
Ultrafast manipulation of vibrational coherence is an emergent route to
control the structure of solids. However, this strategy can only induce
long-range correlations and cannot modify atomic structure locally, which is
required in many technologically-relevant phase transitions. Here, we
demonstrate that ultrafast lasers can generate incoherent structural
fluctuations which are more efficient for material control than coherent
vibrations, extending optical control to a wider range of materials. We observe
that local, non-equilibrium lattice distortions generated by a weak laser pulse
reduce the energy barrier to switch between insulating and metallic states in
vanadium dioxide by 6%. Seeding inhomogeneous structural-fluctuations presents
an alternative, more energy efficient, route for controlling materials that may
be applicable to all solids, including those used in data and energy storage
devices