近日，西班牙马德里先进材料研究所纳米科学研究中心的Allan S. Johnson与巴塞罗那科技学院的Ernest Pastor等人合作并取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们实现具有关联无序的光诱导相变的全光注入。相关研究成果已于2024年4月11日在国际知名学术期刊《自然—物理学》上发表。

该研究团队证实，超快激光能够产生非相干结构波动，相较于相干振动，这种波动在材料控制方面更为高效，从而拓宽了光学控制在各类材料中的应用范围。研究人员观察到，由弱激光脉冲引发的局部非平衡晶格畸变，有效降低了二氧化钒在绝缘态与金属态间转换所需的能量壁垒。这种非均匀结构波动的注入为材料控制提供了一种新的节能途径，其潜在应用可能涵盖所有固体材料，包括用于数据和能量存储的固体器件。

据悉，振动相干性的超快操纵为控制固体结构提供了一条途径。然而，这种策略只能诱导长程关联性，而不能局部修改原子结构，这是许多技术应用(如非易失性电子学)的要求。

附：英文原文

Title: All-optical seeding of a light-induced phase transition with correlated disorder

Author: Johnson, Allan S., Pastor, Ernest, Batlle-Porro, Sergi, Benzidi, Hind, Katayama, Tetsuo, de la Pea Muoz, Gilberto A., Krapivin, Viktor, Kim, Sunam, Lpez, Nria, Trigo, Mariano, Wall, Simon E.

Issue&Volume: 2024-04-11

Abstract: Ultrafast manipulation of vibrational coherence provides a route to control the structure of solids. However, this strategy can only induce long-range correlations and cannot modify atomic structure locally, which is a requirement for many technological applications such as non-volatile electronics. Here we demonstrate that ultrafast lasers can generate incoherent structural fluctuations that are more efficient for material control than coherent vibrations, extending optical control to a wide range of materials. We observe that local non-equilibrium lattice distortions generated by a weak laser pulse reduce the energy barrier to switch between insulating and metallic states in vanadium dioxide. Seeding inhomogeneous structural fluctuations presents an alternative, more energy-efficient, route for controlling materials that may be applicable to all solids, including those used in data- and energy-storage devices.

DOI: 10.1038/s41567-024-02474-4

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-024-02474-4