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1.
ULTRAFAST ELECTRON DYNAMICS IN CORRELATED SYSTEMS PROBED BY TIME-RESOLVED PHOTOEMISSION SPECTROSCOPY
Tanusree Saha, 2023, doctoral dissertation

Abstract: Complex systems in condensed matter are characterized by strong coupling between different degrees of freedom constituting a solid. In materials described by many-body physics, these interactions may lead to the formation of new ground states such as excitonic insulators, Mott insulators, and charge and spin density waves. However, the inherent complexity in such materials poses a challenge to identifying the dominant interactions governing these phases using equilibrium studies. Owing to the distinct timescales associated with the elementary interactions, such complexities can be readily addressed in the non-equilibrium regime. Additionally, these materials might also show the emergence of new, metastable “hidden“ phases under non-equilibrium. The thesis investigates the ultrafast timescales of fundamental interactions in candidate systems by employing time-and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy in the femtosecond time domain. In the (supposed) excitonic insulator model system Ta2NiSe5, the timescale of band gap closure and the dependence of rise time (of the photoemission signal) on the photoexcitation strength point to a predominantly electronic origin of the band gap at the Fermi level. The charge density wave (CDW) - Mott insulator 1T-TaS2 undergoes photoinduced phase transition to two different phases. The initial one is a transient phase which resembles the systems’s high temperature equilibrium phase, followed by a long-lived “hidden“ phase with a different CDW amplitude and is primarily driven by the CDW lattice order. For the spin density wave system CaFe2As2 where multiple bands contribute in the formation of Fermi surfaces, selective photoexcitation was used to disentangle the role played by different electron orbitals. By varying the polarization of photoexcitation pulses, it is observed that dxz/dyz orbitals primarily contribute to the magnetic ordering while the dxy orbitals have dominant role in the structural order. The findings of the present study provide deeper perspectives on the underlying interactions in complex ground phases of matter, therefore, initiating further experimental and theoretical studies on such materials.
Keywords: complex systems, charge density wave, excitonic insulator, metastable phase, Mott insulator, non-equilibrium, spin density wave, timescales, time- and angle-resolved photoemission, ultrafast dynamics
Published in RUNG: 01.06.2023; Views: 1236; Downloads: 26
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Dissecting Mott and charge-density wave dynamics in the photoinduced phase of 1T-TaS[sub]2
Alberto Simoncig, Matija Stupar, Barbara Ressel, Tanusree Saha, Primož Rebernik Ribič, Giovanni De Ninno, 2021, original scientific article

Abstract: The two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenide 1T−TaS2 is a complex material standing out for its puzzling low temperature phase marked by signatures amenable to both Mott-insulating and charge-density wave states. Electronic Mott states, coupled to a lattice, respond to coherent optical excitations via a modulation of the lower (valence) Hubbard band. Such dynamics is driven by strong electron-phonon coupling and typically lasts for tens of picoseconds, mimicking coherent structural distortions. Instead, the response occurring at the much faster timescale, mainly dominated by electronic many-body effects, is still a matter of intense research. By performing time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we investigated the photoinduced phase of 1T−TaS2 and found out that its lower Hubbard band promptly reacts to coherent optical excitations by shifting its binding energy towards a slightly larger value. This process lasts for a time comparable to the optical pump pulse length, mirroring a transient change of the onsite Coulomb repulsion energy (U). Such an observation suggests that the correction to the bare value of U, ascribed to the phonon-mediated screening which slightly opposes the Hubbard repulsion, is lost within an interval of a few tens of femtoseconds and can be understood as a fingerprint of electronic states largely decoupled from the lattice. Additionally, these results enforce the hypothesis, envisaged in the current literature, that the transient photoinduced states belong to a sort of crossover phase instead of an equilibrium metallic one.
Keywords: ultrafast phenomena, time resolved photoemission, strongly correlated systems, transition metal dichalcogenide
Published in RUNG: 13.04.2021; Views: 2318; Downloads: 0
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4.
Advantages and disadvantages of experiments with ultrashort two-color pulses
Matija Stupar, 2020, doctoral dissertation

Abstract: Advances in the development of lasers have led to a new class of radiation sources generating coherent, tunable, ultrashort light pulses in the spectral region ranging from infrared to soft X-rays. This includes high-order harmonics generation in gas (HHG), on which relies the CITIUS facility at University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia), and free-electron lasers (FELs), such as the facility FERMI at Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy). The distinctive structure of HHG and FEL radiation paved the way to time-resolved experiments, which are performed to investigate events occurring on a short, or very short, temporal scale, from picoseconds to femtoseconds. This work focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of some experimental techniques based on using these novel light sources to investigate the microscopic and/or ultrafast dynamics of matter samples, which have been previously driven out of equilibrium. Advantages rely on the implementation of various applications based on two-color schemes and, more specifically, include the possibility of acquiring two-dimensional frequency maps, measuring electrons’ effective masses, or investigating electronic properties decoupled from the influence of the lattice. Particular focus will be put on experimental methods relying on photoelectric effect and photoelectron spectroscopy. In all experiments, we took advantage of one or more specific properties of HHG and FEL sources, such as controllable chirp, to study laser dressed states in helium, variable polarization, to study electronic properties of iron-based pnictides and ultrashort pulses (< 10 fs) to study the purely electronic dynamics in transition metal dichalcogenides. On the other hand, the study of the interface between a molecule and a topological insulator revealed some intrinsic limitations and physical drawbacks of the technique, such as spurious effects originating from the high power pulses, like multiphoton absorption and the space charge effect, or the reduction of experimental resolution when pushing for shorter and shorter pulse durations. Some disadvantages are also connected to the current state-of-the-art in the field of ultrashort laser systems, where a trade-off needs to be found between repetition rate and laser power. Finally, state-of-the-art experiments based on the ability to generate ultrashort pulses carrying orbital angular momentum in visible, near-infrared as well as extreme UV range will be presented. The use of these pulses opens the door to the investigation of new physical phenomena, such as probing magnetic vortices using extreme ultraviolet light from a free-electron laser or imprinting the spatial distribution of an ultrashort infrared pulse carrying orbital angular momentum onto a photoelectron wave packet.
Keywords: ultrafast lasers, two-color experiments, photoemission, high-order harmonic generation, free-electron lasers, hot-electrons dynamics, surface science, pump-probe photoemission, ultraviolet photoemission, orbital angular momentum
Published in RUNG: 02.12.2020; Views: 3650; Downloads: 112
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5.
Ultrafast Element-Specific Demagnetization in Alloys
Jurij Urbančič, doctoral dissertation

Abstract: The study of magnetism has long been an active area of interest for the scientific research, while also providing vast technological applications such as information storage. It was first observed in the middle of the 90s that irradiating a ferromagnetic material with an intense femtosecond laser pulse can result in a loss of magnetization occurring below one picosecond. Since then, the study of magnetism on these femtosecond timescales has been a field of growing interest, addressing the question of how fast can the magnetization modification occurs and what presents the fundamental limit of this speed. For the understanding of these experimental observations, a number of different models were proposed, although the responsible microscopic mechanisms are still under discussion. According to one group of models, the change in magnetic moment is due to the spin-flip mechanism occurring during scattering events between electrons and (quasi-)particles. An example of this is the so-called Microscopic Three-Temperature Model (M3TM). A different approach is employed by the Superdiffusive Spin Current Model, where the loss of magnetization is attributed to a flow of chargeless spin particles taking place after the laser excitation. With the purpose to explore the magnetic characteristic of materials, a range of investigation methods has been developed. One of them relies on the exploitation of the Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) and an incorporation of femtosecond laser pulses in pump-probe configuration. In this way, part of the beam from the same laser system is used to optically excite the system (the pump), while another part takes a snapshot of it (the probe), thus allowing us to investigate the magnetization dynamics with a femtosecond temporal resolution. In the experimental part of the thesis, we apply this MOKE technique to explore the demagnetization dynamics of a ferromagnetic alloy consisting of iron and nickel, also called Permalloy. It is observed that the magnetization is suppressed (quenched) in the first few hundred femtoseconds. Part of the experiments were performed using visible light with different fluences of the pump. The most notable observation is that this alloy exhibits different demagnetization dynamics at lower and higher fluence. What we see is a transition from one-step (demagnetization followed by a recovery on a much longer timescale) to a two-step (demagnetization followed by another slower demagnetization step) magnetization process occurring with the increment of pump fluence. This behavior is predicted and reproduced by the M3TM, which is applied for a comparison between experiments and theory.
Keywords: High Harmonic Generation, Magnetism, Ultrafast, Materials
Published in RUNG: 08.05.2020; Views: 3193; Downloads: 0
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6.
Ultra-Fast-VUV Photoemission Study of UV Excited 2-Nitrophenol
A. Ciavardini, Marcello Coreno, Carlo Callegari, C. Spezzani, Giovanni De Ninno, Barbara Ressel, Cesare Grazioli, Monica de Simone, Antti Kivimak̈i, Paolo Miotti, Fabio Frassetto, Luca Poletto, Petra Rudolf, Simona Fornarini, Marco Pezzella, Enrico Bodo, Susanna Piccirillo, 2019, original scientific article

Abstract: The initial deactivation pathways of gaseous 2-nitrophenol excited at 268 nm were investigated by time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (TRPES) with femtosecond-VUV light, produced by a monochromatized high harmonic generation source. TRPES allowed us to obtain new, valuable experimental information about the ultrafast excited-state dynamics of 2-nitrophenol in the gas phase. In accord with recent ab initio on-the-fly nonadiabatic molecular dynamic simulations, our results validate the occurrence of an ultrafast intersystem crossing leading to an intermediate state that decays on a subpicosecond time scale with a branched mechanisms. Two decay pathways are experimentally observed. One probably involves proton transfer, leading to the most stable triplet aci-form of 2-nitrophenol; the second pathway may involve OH rotation. We propose that following intersystem crossing, an ultrafast fragmentation channel leading to OH or HONO loss could also be operative.
Keywords: Ultrafast photoemission, nitrophenol
Published in RUNG: 12.02.2019; Views: 3545; Downloads: 0
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7.
High Photon Flux 70 eV HHG Source for Ultrafast Dynamics
R. Klas, 2016, published scientific conference contribution

Abstract: We present a high harmonic generation source driven by a nonlinearly compressed fiber laser system resulting in a record high photon flux of 1011 photons/s in single harmonics from 50- 70 eV. This unique property of the HHG source is underlined by static T-MOKE experiments with permalloy samples.
Keywords: Ultrafast nonlinear optics, Multiharmonic generation, Lasers, fiber
Published in RUNG: 08.08.2018; Views: 3856; Downloads: 0
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8.
Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with optimized high-harmonic pulses using frequency-doubled Ti:Sapphire lasers
Steffen Eich, Jurij Urbančič, 2014, original scientific article

Abstract: Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (trARPES) using femtosecond extreme ultraviolet high harmonics has recently emerged as a powerful tool for investigating ultrafast quasiparticle dynamics in correlated-electron materials. However, the full potential of this approach has not yet been achieved because, to date, high harmonics generated by 800 nm wavelength Ti:Sapphire lasers required a trade-off between photon flux, energy and time resolution. Photoemission spectroscopy requires a quasi-monochromatic output, but dispersive optical elements that select a single harmonic can significantly reduce the photon flux and time resolution. Here we show that 400 nm driven high harmonic extreme-ultraviolet trARPES is superior to using 800 nm laser drivers since it eliminates the need for any spectral selection, thereby increasing photon flux and energy resolution to <150 meV while preserving excellent time resolution of about 30 fs.
Keywords: angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, ARPES, high harmonic generation, ultrafast surface science
Published in RUNG: 20.04.2017; Views: 5163; Downloads: 0
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Self-amplified photo-induced gap quenching in a correlated electron material
Mathias Stefan, Eich Steffen, Jurij Urbančič, 2016, original scientific article

Abstract: Capturing the dynamic electronic band structure of a correlated material presents a powerful capability for uncovering the complex couplings between the electronic and structural degrees of freedom. When combined with ultrafast laser excitation, new phases of matter can result, since far-from-equilibrium excited states are instantaneously populated. Here, we elucidate a general relation between ultrafast non-equilibrium electron dynamics and the size of the characteristic energy gap in a correlated electron material. We show that carrier multiplication via impact ionization can be one of the most important processes in a gapped material, and that the speed of carrier multiplication critically depends on the size of the energy gap. In the case of the charge-density wave material 1T-TiSe 2 , our data indicate that carrier multiplication and gap dynamics mutually amplify each other, which explains—on a microscopic level—the extremely fast response of this material to ultrafast optical excitation. Self-amplified photo-induced gap quenching in a correlated electron material. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308804379_Self-amplified_photo-induced_gap_quenching_in_a_correlated_electron_material [accessed Apr 20, 2017].
Keywords: high harmonic generation, charge-density wave material, 1T-TiSe2, non-equilibrium electron dynamics, ultrafast surface science
Published in RUNG: 20.04.2017; Views: 5430; Downloads: 0
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