Ultrafast electronic state conversion at room temperature utilizing hidden state in cuprate ladder system.
Photo-control of material properties on femto- (10(-15)) and pico- (10(-12)) second timescales at room temperature has been a long-sought goal of materials science. Here we demonstrate a unique ultrafast conversion between the metallic and insulating state and the emergence of a hidden insulating state by tuning the carrier coherence in a wide temperature range in the two-leg ladder superconductor Sr(14-x)Ca(x)Cu24O41 through femtosecond time-resolved reflection spectroscopy. We also propose a theoretical scenario that can explain the experimental results. The calculations indicate that the holes injected by the ultrashort light reduce the coherence among the inherent hole pairs and result in suppression of conductivity, which is opposite to the conventional photocarrier-doping mechanism. By using trains of ultrashort laser pulses, we successively tune the carrier coherence to within 1 picosecond. Control of hole-pair coherence is shown to be a realistic strategy for tuning the electronic state on ultrafast timescales at room temperature.
CREST, JST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.|Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
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R
Fukaya
Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
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Y
Okimoto
Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
M
M
Kunitomo
Interactive Research Center of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8502, Japan.|PRESTO, JST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.
K
K
Onda
Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
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T
Ishikawa
CREST, JST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.|Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
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S
Koshihara
Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
H
H
Hashimoto
CREST, JST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.|Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
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S
Ishihara
Materials and Structures Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8503, Japan.
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A
Isayama
Materials and Structures Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8503, Japan.
H
H
Yui
Materials and Structures Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8503, Japan.
T
T
Sasagawa