Evidence for photo-induced monoclinic metallic VO{sub 2} under high pressure

Journal Article · Mon Jan 13 04:00:00 EST 2014 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4862197· OSTI ID:22275722

Hsieh, Wen-Pin; Mao, Wendy L. ^[1]; Trigo, Mariano ^[1]; Reis, David A. ^[1]; Andrea Artioli, Gianluca; Malavasi, Lorenzo ^[2]

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1. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025 (United States)
2. Dipartimento di Chimica, Sezione di Chimica Fisica, INSTM (UdR Pavia), Università di Pavia, Viale Taramelli 16, 27100 Pavia (Italy)

We combine ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with a diamond-anvil cell to decouple the insulator-metal electronic transition from the lattice symmetry changing structural transition in the archetypal strongly correlated material vanadium dioxide. Coherent phonon spectroscopy enables tracking of the photo-excited phonon vibrational frequencies of the low temperature, monoclinic (M{sub 1})-insulating phase that transforms into the metallic, tetragonal rutile structured phase at high temperature or via non-thermal photo-excitations. We find that in contrast with ambient pressure experiments where strong photo-excitation promptly induces the electronic transition along with changes in the lattice symmetry, at high pressure, the coherent phonons of the monoclinic (M{sub 1}) phase are still clearly observed upon the photo-driven phase transition to a metallic state. These results demonstrate the possibility of synthesizing and studying transient phases under extreme conditions.

• OSTI ID: 22275722
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 104; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
DIAMONDS
EXCITATION
MONOCLINIC LATTICES
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PHONONS
RUTILE
VANADIUM OXIDES