Ultrafast electron crystallography of the cooperative reaction path in vanadium dioxide.

Struct Dyn

Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology, Arthur Amos Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.

Published: May 2016

Time-resolved electron diffraction with atomic-scale spatial and temporal resolution was used to unravel the transformation pathway in the photoinduced structural phase transition of vanadium dioxide. Results from bulk crystals and single-crystalline thin-films reveal a common, stepwise mechanism: First, there is a femtosecond V-V bond dilation within 300 fs, second, an intracell adjustment in picoseconds and, third, a nanoscale shear motion within tens of picoseconds. Experiments at different ambient temperatures and pump laser fluences reveal a temperature-dependent excitation threshold required to trigger the transitional reaction path of the atomic motions.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902825PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4953370DOI Listing

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