Successive Dynamical Steps of Photoinduced Switching of a Molecular Fe(III) Spin-Crossover Material by Time-Resolved X-Ray Diffraction

Maciej Lorenc (1) , Johan Hébert (1) , Nicolas Moisan (1) , Elzbieta Trzop (1) , Marina Servol (1) , Marylise Buron-Le Cointe (1) , Hervé Cailleau (1) , Marie-Laure Boillot (2) , Emanuele Pontecorvo (3) , Michaël Wulff (3) , Shin-Ya Koshihara (4, 5) , Eric Collet (1)

1 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes
2 ICMMO - Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d'Orsay
3 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
4 ERATO - Non-equilibrium Dynamics Project
5 Department of Materials Science [Tokyo]

We investigate the out-of-equilibrium switching dynamics of a molecular Fe(III) spin-crossover solid triggered by a femtosecond laser flash. The time-resolved x-ray diffraction and optical results show that the dynamics span from subpicosecond local photoswitching followed by volume expansion (nanosecond) and thermal switching (microsecond). We present a physical picture of the consecutive steps in the photoswitching of molecular materials.

Mots clés: Femtosecond probes of molecules in solids and of molecular solids; Crystallographic aspects of phase transformations; pressure effects; Coherent nonlinear optical spectroscopy; Time resolved spectroscopy

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Maciej Lorenc, Johan Hébert, Nicolas Moisan, Elzbieta Trzop, Marina Servol, et al.. Successive Dynamical Steps of Photoinduced Switching of a Molecular Fe(III) Spin-Crossover Material by Time-Resolved X-Ray Diffraction. Physical Review Letters, 2009, 103 (2), pp.28301. ⟨10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.103.028301⟩. ⟨hal-00665788⟩