Understanding and controlling the forces that drive the formation of symmetry-broken phases in quantum materials is a key challenge in condensed matter physics. The nature of the correlated interplay between charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom, however, often remains hidden in equilibrium studies where adiabatic tuning masks the causal ordering of rapid interactions. This motivates the use of ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) to capture structural dynamics on intrinsic time scales, for insight into the role of atomic-scale lattice distortions and vibrational excitations in driving, stabilizing and ultimately controlling emergent phases.
In a recent publication, a STROBE team carried out the first-ever ultrafast study of tantalum telluride (TaTe2), yielding direct insight into its structural dynamics. The material exhibits unique periodic charge and lattice trimer order, which transitions from stripe-like chains into a (3×3) superstructure of trimer clusters at low temperatures. After cooling to 10 K, the thin crystalline films were optically excited and the structural dynamics was probed with the high-brightness electron bunches. Satellite peaks as well as sign changes in the complex diffraction patterns yield a fingerprint of the periodic order and structural transition. Our experiments captured the photo-induced melting of the trimer clusters in TaTe2, evidencing an ultrafast phase transition into the stripe-like phase on a ~1.4 ps time scale. Subsequently, thermalization into a hot cluster superstructure occurred. Density-functional calculations indicate that the initial quench is triggered by intra-trimer Ta charge transfer, which destabilizes the clusters unlike CDW melting in other TaX2 compounds.
Critical to this project were new methods and algorithms, enhanced microscopes and samples, advanced sample preparation as well as a unique high repetition rate ultrafast electron diffraction beamline utilized by the STROBE team from UC Berkeley, LBNL and UCLA