Non-thermal breaking of magnetic order via photo-generated spin defects

Abstract

In Mott insulators the evolution of antiferromagnetic order to superconducting or charge-density-wave-like states upon chemical doping underpins the control of quantum phases. Photo-doping can induce similar transitions on the ultrafast timescale, however the response of the spin system has remained elusive. Here, we use 4D-ultrafast optical spectroscopy to extract quantitative magnetic dynamics in the spin-orbit coupled Mott insulator Sr3Ir2O7. We demonstrate that light can non-thermally melt long-range spin order. At low fluences magnetic order recovers within 1 ps despite demagnetization of roughly 50%. However, high fluences induce a crossover to a long-lived demagnetized state without increasing the lattice temperature. We show that the generation of photo-induced spin defects enables a mechanism that stabilizes the demagnetized state which could help expose new transient phases.

References in corpus (8)

• Nonlinear lattice dynamics as a basis for enhanced superconductivity in YBa2Cu3O6.5
• Visualization of Dynamic Polaronic Strain Fields in Hybrid Lead Halide Perovskites
• Giant Magnon Gap in Bilayer Iridate Sr3Ir2O7: Enhanced Pseudo-dipolar Interactions Near the Mott Transition
• Square Lattice Iridates
• Strong Pseudospin-Lattice Coupling in Sr3Ir2O7: Coherent Phonon Anomaly and Negative Thermal Expansion
• Multi-mode excitation drives disorder during the ultrafast melting of a C4-symmetry-broken phase
• Probing the Lattice Anharmonicity of Superconducting YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ Via Phonon Harmonics
• Ultrafast dynamics in relativistic Mott insulators

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Ultrafast loss of lattice coherence in the light-induced structural phase transition of V${}_2$O${}_3$
• Determination and correction of spectral phase from principal component analysis of coherent phonons