Ultrafast Investigation of Electronic and Structural Dynamics in Photomagnetic Molecular Solids

Download or read book Ultrafast Investigation of Electronic and Structural Dynamics in Photomagnetic Molecular Solids written by Andrea Marino and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ability to photo-switch physical/chemical properties of functional materials through photo induced phase transition opens fascinating perspectives for driving the material towards new state out of thermal equilibrium. However, it is fundamental to disentangle and understand all the dynamical phenomena, otherwise hidden in statistically averaged macroscopic transformations. Arguably, time-resolved studies are unique approach to access the necessary information on the multiple degrees of freedom and elementary processes involved during the macroscopic switching. As photo-reversible molecular switches, spin crossover (SCO) materials are of particular interest. These photomagnetic and photochromic prototype materials undergo metastable photoinduced phase transition between two states of different spin multiplicity, namely low-spin (LS) and high-spin (HS). In this PhD work it will be presented the ultrafast electronic and structural dynamics of SCO molecular solids emphasizing the importance of using complementary probes sensitive to different degrees of freedom. The photoinduced spin state switching concerns initially only an ultrafast, but localized, molecular response which through strong electron-phonon coupling activates coherent intra-molecular vibrations. An ultrafast energy transfer from the molecule to the lattice, via phonon-phonon coupling, allows an efficient trapping of the system in the new photoinduced state. However in molecular solids, the excess of energy released from the absorber molecule results in a complex multi-scale aspect involving several degrees of freedom at different time scales. In this contest, we investigated the multi-step out-of equilibrium dynamics of a SCO system undergoing symmetry breaking between the HS phase and the intermediate (IP) phase where a long range ordering of HS and LS molecules results in a spin state concentration wave (SSCW), analogous to charge or spin density waves. Combined time-resolved X-ray diffraction and optical spectroscopy studies provide a complete overview of the out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics of the SSCW, investigating how the two order parameters describing the system evolve in time.