Light-induced charge density wave in LaT₃
Name
1904.07472.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
7.17 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Kogar, Anshul
Zong, Alfred
Bie, Yaqing
Wang, Xirui
Rohwer, Timm
Yang, Yafang
Jarillo-Herrero, Pablo
Gedik, Nuh
Date Issued
November 2019
Journal
Nature Physics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Kogar, Anshul et al. “Light-induced charge density wave in LaT₃.” Nature Physics, 16, 2 (November 2019): 159–163 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
When electrons in a solid are excited by light, they can alter the free energy landscape and access phases of matter that are out of reach in thermal equilibrium. This accessibility becomes important in the presence of phase competition, when one state of matter is preferred over another by only a small energy scale that, in principle, is surmountable by the excitation. Here, we study a layered compound, LaTe3, where a small lattice anisotropy in the a–c plane results in a unidirectional charge density wave (CDW) along the c axis1,2. Using ultrafast electron diffraction, we find that, after photoexcitation, the CDW along the c axis is weakened and a different competing CDW along the a axis subsequently emerges. The timescales characterizing the relaxation of this new CDW and the reestablishment of the original CDW are nearly identical, which points towards a strong competition between the two orders. The new density wave represents a transient non-equilibrium phase of matter with no equilibrium counterpart, and this study thus provides a framework for discovering similar states of matter that are ‘trapped’ under equilibrium conditions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Materials Research Laboratory
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41567-019-0705-3
