Anisotropy of Ultrafast Strain in V2O3 Thin Films: Out-of-Equilibrium Phase Transitions under Interfacial Clamping
Abstract
Ultrafast photoinduced insulator-to-metal transitions in correlated materials are often mediated by lattice distortions, yet the role of interfacial lattice constraints in shaping nonequilibrium pathways remains largely unexplored. We use azimuth-resolved time-resolved X-ray diffraction to track orientation-dependent strain dynamics in granular V2O3 thin films on c-cut sapphire, where thermal-expansion mismatch imposes anisotropic interfacial strain. Across the thermal transition, the azimuthal profile of the (110)H strain inverts curvature, providing direct evidence of partial clamping of the hexagonal basal-plane lattice (aH,bH). After photoexcitation of the antiferromagnetic insulating phase, the structural response remains clamp-limited: weakly constrained grain families reach the full basal-plane contraction characteristic of the metallic-like state, whereas strongly constrained families exhibit a strongly reduced distortion. Fluence-dependent measurements further disentangle transformed fraction from clamping-limited lattice distortion. Our results show that interfacial clamping acts as a static selector for ultrafast phase switching and provide a general route to quantify anisotropic strain dynamics in heterostructures.
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BibTeX
@misc{guzmanbrambila2026anisotropy,
title = {{Anisotropy of Ultrafast Strain in $V_2O_3$ Thin Films: Out-of-Equilibrium Phase Transitions under Interfacial Clamping}},
author = {J. Guzman-Brambila and R. Mandal and D. Lea and E. Trzop and M. Servol and J. C. Ekström and F. Pawula and J. Tranchant and L. Cario and M. Lorenc and E. Janod and C. Mariette},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.11419},
eprint = {2609.11419},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.11419},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Anisotropy of Ultrafast Strain in V_2O_3 Thin Films: Out-of-Equilibrium Phase Transitions under Interfacial Clamping
AU - J. Guzman-Brambila
AU - R. Mandal
AU - D. Lea
AU - E. Trzop
AU - M. Servol
AU - J. C. Ekström
AU - F. Pawula
AU - J. Tranchant
AU - L. Cario
AU - M. Lorenc
AU - E. Janod
AU - C. Mariette
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.11419
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.11419
AB - Ultrafast photoinduced insulator-to-metal transitions in correlated materials are often mediated by lattice distortions, yet the role of interfacial lattice constraints in shaping nonequilibrium pathways remains largely unexplored. We use azimuth-resolved time-resolved X-ray diffraction to track orientation-dependent strain dynamics in granular V_2O_3 thin films on c-cut sapphire, where thermal-expansion mismatch imposes anisotropic interfacial strain. Across the thermal transition, the azimuthal profile of the (110)_H strain inverts curvature, providing direct evidence of partial clamping of the hexagonal basal-plane lattice (a_H,b_H). After photoexcitation of the antiferromagnetic insulating phase, the structural response remains clamp-limited: weakly constrained grain families reach the full basal-plane contraction characteristic of the metallic-like state, whereas strongly constrained families exhibit a strongly reduced distortion. Fluence-dependent measurements further disentangle transformed fraction from clamping-limited lattice distortion. Our results show that interfacial clamping acts as a static selector for ultrafast phase switching and provide a general route to quantify anisotropic strain dynamics in heterostructures.
ER -