Ultrafast pulses of terahertz radiation are used to excite individual vibrational modes in a magnetoresistive manganite. In a system such as this, with strongly correlated electrons, even subtle changes of crystal structure can have a profound effect on material properties, and this is indeed what they see: the activated vibration is sufficient to drive the material from a stable insulating phase to a metastable metallic one.
- Matteo Rini
- Ra'anan Tobey
- Andrea Cavalleri