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Ultrafast modification of coherent phonons during the photoinduced insulator-to-metal phase transition in neodymium nickelate

Oleg Dogadov1,*,†, Grace A. Pan2,‡, Andrea Villa1, Dan Ferenc Segedin2, Premysl Marsik3, Charles M. Brooks2, Hanjong Paik4,§, Qi Song2,∥, Valeria Russo5 et al.

Carlo S. Casari5, Julia A. Mundy2,6, Giulio Cerullo1,7, and Stefano Dal Conte1,¶

  • 1Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan 20133, Italy
  • 2Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
  • 4Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials (PARADIM), Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
  • 5Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini, Milan 20156, Italy
  • 6School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 7CNR-IFN, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan 20133, Italy

  • *Contact author: oleg.dogadov@polimi.it
  • †Present address: Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
  • ‡Present address: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
  • §Present address: School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.
  • ∥Present address: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Irvine, California, USA.
  • Contact author: stefano.dalconte@polimi.it
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 014304 – Published 9 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yg97-vfmn

Abstract

The interplay between electronic and lattice degrees of freedom in the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) in rare-earth nickelates is a long-standing question. In the present work, broadband ultrafast transient reflectivity (TR) spectroscopy is applied to study the photoinduced IMT in NdNiO3. Both coherent and incoherent terms of the TR signal show discontinuous behavior around the same pump fluence value. A drastic drop in the sample reflectivity appearing at ∼100 fs timescale in the high excitation density regime indicates the closing of the gap across the IMT. In this regime, coherent phonons associated with the low-temperature crystal phase are not observed even at early time delays, indicating an ultrafast transformation of the lattice potential. A detailed analysis of the coherent phonons indicates a strong coupling between some phonon modes, electronic excitations, and possibly the magnetic order. In this study, we provide insights into the ultrafast dynamics of rare-earth nickelates.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 014304– Published 9 January, 2026
  • Received 24 July 2025
  • Revised 6 November 2025
  • Accepted 1 December 2025
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