2019/04/15 by Faran Zhou, Joseph Williams, Zhou, Faran +9 · 3 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Organic and Molecular Conductors Research #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1904.07120
openalex publication_date 2019/04/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Nonequilibrium phase transition plays a pivotal role in a broad physical context from condensed matter to cosmology. Tracking the formation of non-equilibrium phases in condensed matter is challenging and requires a resolution of the long-range cooperativity on ultra-short timescales. Here, we study the spontaneous symmetry breaking transformation of a charge-density wave system from a stripe phase into a checkerboard state. Such a state is thermodynamically forbidden, but is introduced through a system quench using ultrashort, intense laser pulses. The dynamics is mediated by the soft modes that unfold spontaneously and order the field on a timescale ~1 ps. Using the coherent electron diffraction with ~100 fs resolution, we capture the entire course and demonstrate nonergodic behavior proximal to symmetry breaking that is crucial for stabilizing the hidden states. Remarkably, the thermalization due to carriers cooling arrests the remnants of the transient orders into the topological defects in the eventual state with distinct new properties that last for more than 1 ns. The fundamental dynamics observed here opens an intriguing perspective of controlling phase transitions in quantum materials far from equilibrium.