Multi-mode excitation drives disorder during the ultrafast melting of a C4-symmetry-broken phase

Abstract

Spontaneous C4-symmetry breaking phases are ubiquitous in layered quantum materials, and often compete with other phases such as superconductivity. Preferential suppression of the symmetry broken phases by light has been used to explain non-equilibrium light induced superconductivity, metallicity, and the creation of metastable states. Key to understanding how these phases emerge is understanding how C4 symmetry is restored. A leading approach is based on time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory, which explains the coherence response seen in many systems. However, we show that, for the case of the single layered manganite La0.5Sr1.5MnO4, the theory fails. Instead, we find an ultrafast inhomogeneous disordering transition in which the mean-field order parameter no longer reflects the atomic-scale state of the system. Our results suggest that disorder may be common to light-induced phase transitions, and methods beyond the mean-field are necessary for understanding and manipulating photoinduced phases.

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Photo-induced nonequilibrium states in Mott insulators
• Optical Saturation Produces Spurious Evidence for Photoinduced Superconductivity in K${}_3$C${}_{60}$
• Traversing double-well potential energy surfaces: photoinduced concurrent intralayer and interlayer structural transitions in XTe2 (X=Mo, W)
• Ultrafast loss of lattice coherence in the light-induced structural phase transition of V${}_2$O${}_3$
• Inhomogeneous disordering at a photo-induced charge density wave transition
• Non-thermal breaking of magnetic order via photo-generated spin defects
• Time-domain study of coupled collective excitations in quantum materials
• Stochastic semiclassical theory for non-equilibrium electron-phonon coupled systems
• Ultrafast surface melting of orbital order in La0.5Sr1.5MnO4
• Nonequilibrium control of kagome metals
• Evidence for bootstrap percolation dynamics in a photo-induced phase transition
• Nonthermal order by disorder
• A versatile setup for symmetry-resolved ultrafast dynamics of quantum materials
• Tracking the local order parameter through the Hubbard exciton decoherence time in the Mott-Hubbard insulator LaVO3