Direct and real time probe of photoinduced structure transition in colossal magnetoresistive material

Abstract

We report a direct and real time measurement of photoinduced structure phase transition in single crystal La0.84Sr0.16MnO3 using femtosecond electron diffraction. The melting of orthorhombic lattice ordering under femtosecond optical excitation is found involving two distinct processes with different time scales, an initial fast melting of orthorhombic phase in about 4 ps and a subsequent slower transformation in 90 ps and longer timescales. The fast process is designated as the initial melting of orthorhombic phase induced by the Mn-O bond change that is most likely driven by the quenching of the dynamic Jahn-Teller distortion following the photo-excitation. The slow process is attributed to the growing of newly formed structure domain from the photo-excited sites to the neighboring non-excited orthorhombic sites.