Light control of the nanoscale phase separation in heteroepitaxial nickelates
Giordano Mattoni (TU Delft - QN/Caviglia Lab)
Nicola Manca (TU Delft - QN/Caviglia Lab)
M. Hadjimichael (University College London)
P. Zubko (University College London)
J.H. van der Torren (Universiteit Leiden)
C. Yin (Universiteit Leiden)
S. Catalano (University of Geneva)
M. Gibert (University of Geneva)
F. Maccherozzi (Diamond Light Source)
Y. Liu (Diamond Light Source)
S.S. Dhesi (Diamond Light Source)
Andrea Caviglia (TU Delft - QN/Caviglia Lab)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Strongly correlated materials show unique solid-state phase transitions with rich nanoscale phenomenology that can be controlled by external stimuli. Particularly interesting is the case of light–matter interaction in the proximity of the metal–insulator transition of heteroepitaxial nickelates. In this work, we use near-infrared laser light in the high-intensity excitation regime to manipulate the nanoscale phase separation in NdNiO3. By tuning the laser intensity, we can reproducibly set the coverage of insulating nanodomains, which we image by photoemission electron microscopy, thus semipermanently configuring the material state. With the aid of transport measurements and finite element simulations, we identify two different timescales of thermal dynamics in the light–matter interaction: a steady-state and a fast transient local heating. These results open interesting perspectives for locally manipulating and reconfiguring electronic order at the nanoscale by optical means.