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.

References in corpus (27)

• Evidence for a Structurally-driven Insulator-to-metal Transition in VO2: a View from the Ultrafast Timescale
• Nonlinear lattice dynamics as a basis for enhanced superconductivity in YBa2Cu3O6.5
• Lattice symmetry breaking in cuprate superconductors: Stripes, nematics, and superconductivity
• Cooperative photoinduced metastable phase control in strained manganite films
• Tunable Giant Exchange Bias in an Intercalated Transition Metal Dichalcogenide
• Ultrafast nano-imaging of the order parameter in a structural phase transition
• Optically induced superconductivity in striped La2-xBaxCuO4 by polarization-selective excitation in the near infrared
• Structural and magnetic properties of the single-layer manganese oxide La{1-x}Sr{1+x}MnO4
• Disentanglement of the electronic and lattice parts of the order parameter in a 1D Charge Density Wave system probed by femtosecond spectroscopy
• Photo-enhanced metastable c-axis electrodynamics in stripe ordered cuprate La${}_{1.885}$Ba${}_{0.115}$CuO${}_4$
• Optical manipulation of electronic dimensionality in a quantum material
• Nonequilibrium Charge-Density-Wave Order Beyond the Thermal Limit
• Femtosecond x rays link melting of charge-density wave correlations and light-enhanced coherent transport in YBa2Cu3O6.6
• Coherent order parameter dynamics in SmTe${}_3$
• Self-similar dynamics of order parameter fluctuations in pump-probe experiments
• Dynamic conductivity scaling in photoexcited V2O3 thin films
• Nanoscale spectroscopic imaging of phase separation in a correlated material by resonant X-ray holography
• Restoring Interlayer Josephson Coupling in La_{1.885}Ba_{0.115}CuO_4 by Charge Transfer Melting of Stripe Order
• Structural changes at the semiconductor-insulator phase transition in the single layered La0.5Sr1.5MnO4 perovskite
• Dynamics of a Persistent Insulator-to-Metal Transition in Strained Manganite Films
• Measurement of 10 fs pulses across the entire Visible to Near-Infrared Spectral Range
• THz Field Control of In-Plane Orbital Order in La0.5Sr1.5MnO4
• Optical control of vibrational coherence triggered by an ultrafast phase transition
• Mapping nanoscale charge states and phase domains with quantitative hyperspectral coherent diffractive imaging spectroscopy
• Nucleation and growth bottleneck in the conductivity recovery dynamics of nickelate thin films
• Disentangling charge and structural contributions during coherent atomic motions studied by ultrafast resonant x-ray diffraction
• Surface Melting of Electronic Order

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