1. Photoinduced structural dynamics of multiferroic TbMnO$_3$
- Author
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Elsa Abreu, Matteo Savoini, Larissa Boie, Paul Beaud, Vincent Esposito, Martin Kubli, Martin J. Neugebauer, Michael Porer, Urs Staub, Bulat Burganov, Chris Dornes, Angel Rodriguez-Fernandez, Lucas Huber, Gabriel Lantz, José R. L. Mardegan, Sergii Parchenko, Jochen Rittmann, Cris Svetina, Gerhard Ingold, and Steven L. Johnson
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons ,Condensed Matter - Materials Science ,Condensed Matter::Materials Science ,Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) ,Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) ,FOS: Physical sciences - Abstract
We use time-resolved hard x-ray diffraction to investigate the structural dynamics of the multiferroic insulator TbMnO$_3$ in the low temperature antiferromagnetic and ferroelectrically ordered phase. The lattice response following photoexcitation at 1.55 eV is detected by measuring the (0 2 4) and (1 3 -5) Bragg reflections. A 0.02% tensile strain, normal to the surface, is seen to arise within 20 - 30 ps. The magnitude of this transient strain is over an order of magnitude lower than that predicted from laser-induced heating, which we attribute to a bottleneck in the energy transfer between the electronic and lattice subsystems. The timescale for the transient expansion is consistent with that of previously reported demagnetization dynamics. We discuss a possible relationship between structural and demagnetization dynamics in TbMnO$_3$, in which photoinduced atomic motion modulates the exchange interaction, leading to a destruction of the magnetic order in the system., Comment: 3 figures, 4 footnotes
- Published
- 2022
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