Ultrafast evolution and transient phases of the prototype out-of-equilibrium Mott-Hubbard material V2O3

Abstract

The study of photoexcited strongly correlated materials is attracting growing interest since their rich phase diagram often translates into an equally rich out-of-equilibrium behavior, including non-thermal phases and photoinduced phase transitions. With femtosecond optical pulses, electronic and lattice degrees of freedom can be transiently decoupled, giving the opportunity of stabilizing new states of matter inaccessible by quasi-adiabatic pathways. Here we present a study of the ultrafast non-equilibrium evolution of the prototype Mott-Hubbard material V2O3, which presents a transient non-thermal phase developing immediately after photoexcitation and lasting few picoseconds. For both the insulating and the metallic phase, the formation of the transient configuration is triggered by the excitation of electrons into the bonding a1g orbital, and is then stabilized by a lattice distortion characterized by a marked hardening of the A1g coherent phonon. This configuration is in stark contrast with the thermally accessible ones - the A1g phonon frequency actually softens when heating the material. Our results show the importance of selective electron-lattice interplay for the ultrafast control of material parameters, and are of particular relevance for the optical manipulation of strongly correlated systems, whose electronic and structural properties are often strongly intertwinned.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Ultrafast transient generation of spin-densitywave order in the normal state of BaFe2As2 driven by coherent lattice vibrations
• A Microscopic View on the Mott transition in Chromium-doped V2O3
• Enhanced Crystal Field Splitting and Orbital Selective Coherence by Strong Correlations in V_2O_3
• Photo-induced states in a Mott insulator
• Quasiparticle evolution and pseudogap formation in V2O3: An infrared spectroscopy study
• Witnessing the formation and relaxation of massive quasi-particles in a strongly correlated electron system
• Photoemission study of (V${}_{1-x}$M${}_x$)${}_2$O${}_3$ (M=Cr, Ti)
• Electronic structure of V2O3: Wannier orbitals from LDA-$N$MTO calculations

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Strong laser physics, non-classical light states and quantum information science
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• Nanoscale self-organisation and metastable non-thermal metallicity in Mott insulators
• Non-thermal light-assisted resistance collapse in a V${}_2$O${}_3$-based Mott-insulator device
• Picosecond volume expansion drives a later-time insulator-metal transition in a nano-textured Mott Insulator
• Domain size effects on the dynamics of a charge density wave in 1T-TaS2
• Disentangling structural and electronic properties in V${}_2$O${}_3$ thin films: a genuine non-symmetry breaking Mott transition
• Mott materials: unsuccessful metals with a bright future
• Distinguishing and controlling Mottness in 1T-TaS${}_2$ by ultrafast light
• Photo-induced insulator-metal transition in paramagnetic (V${}_{1-x}$Cr${}_x$)${}_2$O${}_3$
• Coupling between a charge density wave and magnetism in an Heusler material
• Disorder Enhanced Thermalization in Interacting Many-Particle System