Non-equilibrium dynamics in light-induced phase change

Paper Title:

Hidden non-equilibrium pathways towards crystalline perfection

Published on:

7 February 2024

Primary Category:

Materials Science

Paper Authors:

A. Mangu,

V. A. Stoica,

H. Zheng,

T. Yang,

M. Zhang,

H. Wang,

Q. L. Nguyen,

S. Song,

S. Das,

P. Meisenheimer,

E. Donoway,

M. Chollet,

Y. Sun,

J. J. Turner,

J. W. Freeland,

H. Wen,

L. W. Martin,

L. -Q. Chen,

V. Gopalan,

D. Zhu,

Y. Cao,

A. M. Lindenberg

Bullets

Key Details

•

Single-shot x-ray scattering probes non-equilibrium phase transition

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Heterogeneous dynamics span >10 orders of magnitude in time

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Observe multistep process of nucleation, growth, defect formation/annihilation

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Model as stochastic dynamics of domain boundaries

Explore the topics in this paper

complex oxide

defects boundaries

phase transitions

stochastic processes

ultrafast x-ray scattering

AI generated summary

Non-equilibrium dynamics in light-induced phase change

Researchers used an ultrafast x-ray scattering technique to probe the microscopic dynamics during an optically-triggered phase transition in a complex oxide material. They observed a heterogeneous, non-equilibrium process spanning timescales over ten orders of magnitude. The data suggests the phase transition proceeds via nucleation, growth, and eventual annihilation of defects at domain boundaries, analogous to glassy systems. Modeling the dynamics as a stochastic process captures key features in the data.