Nanometer-Scale Acoustic Wave Packets Generated by Stochastic Core-Level Photoionization Events
We demonstrate that the absorption of femtosecond hard x-ray pulses excites quasispherical, high-amplitude, and high-wave-vector coherent acoustic phonon wave packets using an all hard-x-ray pump-probe scattering experiment. The time- and momentum-resolved diffuse scattering signal is consistent with an ensemble of 3D strain wave packets induced by the rapid electron cascade dynamics following photoionization at uncorrelated excitation centers. We quantify key parameters of this process, including the localization size of the stress field and the photon energy conversion efficiency into elastic energy. The parameters are determined by the photoelectron and Auger electron cascade dynamics, as well as the electron-phonon interaction. In particular, we obtain the localization size of the observed strain wave packet to be 1.5 and 2.5 nm for bulk <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mrow><a:msub><a:mrow><a:mi>SrTiO</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mrow><a:mn>3</a:mn></a:mrow></a:msub></a:mrow></a:math> and <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:mrow><c:msub><c:mrow><c:mi>KTaO</c:mi></c:mrow><c:mrow><c:mn>3</c:mn></c:mrow></c:msub></c:mrow></c:math> single crystals, respectively. The results provide crucial information on the mechanism of x-ray energy deposition into matter and shed light on the shortest collective length scales accessible to coherent acoustic phonon generation using x-ray excitation. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Authors
- David A. Reis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1576-7533)
- Matthieu Chollet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9629-890X)
- James M. Rondinelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0508-2175)
- Marco Bernardi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7289-9666)
- Taito Osaka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0545-9737)
- Sanghoon Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3493-1850)
- Yanwen Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5926-6565)
- Keith A. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7804-5418)
- Mingqiang Gu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2889-2202)
- Takahiro Sato (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4364-2110)
- Nan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3938-2339)
- Peihao Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3608-1557)
- A. A. Maznev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5405-9900)
- Jin-Jian Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1182-9186)
- Johann Haber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3595-4624)
- Ryan A. Duncan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2831-8099)
- Hyun D. Shin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2024-5366)
- Samuel W. Teitelbaum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0812-9832)
- Makina Yabashi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2472-1684)
- Haoyuan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1845-3748)
- Yijing Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5453-7722)
- Mariano Trigo
- Diling Zhu
- Ichiro Inoue
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Padua (IT)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- SPring-8 (JP)
- Linac Coherent Light Source (US)
- Arizona State University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review X
- Published
- 2024-10-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.14.041010
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.47
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Office of Science
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Basic Energy Sciences
- H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering