Phase Transitions In Metal Oxides

Vanadium sesquioxide is a material that exhibits an insulator-to-metal transition at 150K. Using ultrafast optical spectroscopy, students Mengkun Liu and Jingdi Zhang in Professor Richard Averitt’s group have probed changes in the far-infrared conductivity with picosecond temporal resolution. In the correlated metallic state pronounced conductivity oscillations were observed. These oscillations result from photoinduced coherent acoustic pulses modulating orbital interactions and consequently the conductivity. Using this approach, it should be possible to investigate and control the dynamics in numerous complex materials where photons catalyze the formation of phases that are not thermally accessible.

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