Giant photoinduced lattice distortion in oxygen-vacancy ordered SrCoO2.5 thin films

TL;DR

This study reveals a giant, non-thermal photoinduced lattice expansion in SrCoO2.5 thin films, driven by ultrafast structural dynamics and charge transfer mechanisms, advancing understanding of photoresponsive transition metal oxides.

Contribution

It demonstrates a significant photoinduced lattice distortion in oxygen-vacancy ordered SrCoO2.5 films and elucidates the microscopic mechanisms behind this non-thermal effect using ultrafast X-ray diffraction and theoretical simulations.

Findings

Giant photoinduced strain (>1%) observed in SrCoO2.5 films.

Non-thermal origin of strain confirmed by correlation with photon energy.

Simulation reveals charge transfer and spin crossover as key mechanisms.

Abstract

Despite of the tremendous efforts spent on the oxygen vacancy migration in determining the property optimization of oxygen-vacancy enrichment transition metal oxides, few has focused on their dynamic behaviors non-equilibrium states. In this work, we performed multi-timescale ultrafast X-ray diffraction measurements by using picosecond synchrotron X-ray pulses and femtosecond table-top X-ray pulses to monitor the structural dynamics in the oxygen-vacancy ordered SrCoO2.5 thin films. A giant photoinduced strain ({\Delta}c/c > 1%) was observed, whose distinct correlation with the pump photon energy indicates a non-thermal origin of the photoinduced strain. The sub-picosecond resolution X-ray diffraction reveals the formation and propagation of the coherent acoustic phonons inside the film. We also simulate the effect of photoexcited electron-hole pairs and the resulting lattice changes using the Density Function Theory method to obtain further insight on the microscopic mechanism of the measured photostriction effect. Comparable photostrictive responses and the strong dependence on excitation wavelength are predicted, revealing a bonding to anti-bonding charge transfer or high spin to intermediate spin crossover induced lattice expansion in the oxygen-vacancy films.