Journal
NATURE MATERIALS
Volume 12, Issue 10, Pages 882-886Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NMAT3718
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Funding
- Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) [DE-AC02-76SF00515]
- LCLS by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences
- Stanford University through the Stanford Institute for Materials Energy Sciences (SIMES)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- University of Hamburg through the BMBF priority programme FSP [301]
- Center for Free Electron Laser Science (CFEL)
- FOM/NWO
- Helmholtz Virtual Institute Dynamic Pathways in Multidimensional Landscapes
- DFG [SFB 608]
- BMBF [05K10PK2]
- SFB [925]
- European Union Seventh Framework Programme [280555]
- Italian Ministry of University and Research [FIRB-RBAP045JF2, FIRB-RBAP06AWK3]
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As the oldest known magnetic material, magnetite (Fe3O4) has fascinated mankind for millennia. As the first oxide in which a relationship between electrical conductivity and fluctuating/localized electronic order was shown(1), magnetite represents a model system for understanding correlated oxides in general. Nevertheless, the exact mechanism of the insulator-metal, or Verwey, transition has long remained inaccessible(2-8). Recently, three- Fe- site lattice distortions called trimeronswere identified as the characteristic building blocks of the low-temperature insulating electronically ordered phase(9). Here we investigate the Verwey transition with pump- probe X- ray diffraction and optical reflectivity techniques, and show how trimerons become mobile across the insulator-metal transition. We find this to be a two- step process. After an initial 300 fs destruction of individual trimerons, phase separation occurs on a 1.5 +/- 0.2 ps timescale to yield residual insulating and metallic regions. This work establishes the speed limit for switching in future oxide electronics(10).
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