Eric Collet, University of Rennes
New possibilities appear for controlling with light physical properties of materials, such as color (1), conductivity (2) or magnetism (3). Phase transition can readily be photoinduced, sometimes on ultrashort time-scale, and this is of great interest for technological development. This development is limited by our understanding of the primary events, when the electronic state excited by the photon drives the change of structure for generating the new function. This coupling between electronic (4) and structural (5) degrees of freedom can be investigated with sophisticated instrumentation such as ultrashort lasers and X-ray free electron laser such as LCLS.
References
1. E. Collet et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 257206 (2012).
2. M. Chollet et al, Science 307, 86 (2005).
3. M. Lorenc et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 028301 (2009).
4. R. Bertoni et al, Angew. Chem. 51, 7485-7489 (2012).
5. E. Collet special issue "Dynamical structural science" Acta Cryst. A. 66 (2010).
