Femtosecond-resolved imaging of a single-particle phase transition in energy-filtered ultrafast electron microscopy

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add5375
• Publication Date: 2023-01-27T19:02:24Z
• Authors: Ye-Jin Kim; Hak-Won Nho; Shaozheng Ji; Hyejin Lee; Hyunhyub Ko; Jonas Weissenrieder; Oh-Hoon Kwon
• Keywords: Picosecond

Using an energy filter in transmission electron microscopy has enabled elemental mapping at the atomic scale and improved precision of structural determination by gating inelastic elastic imaging electrons, respectively. Here, we use ultrafast to enhance temporal resolution toward domain motion. Visualizing transient structures with femtosecond was achieved selecting electrons a narrow distribution from dense chirped photoelectron packets broad longitudinal momentum distributions thus typically exhibiting picosecond durations. In this study, heterogeneous phase transitions vanadium dioxide (VO2) nanoparticles, representative strongly correlated system, were filmed attributed emergence transient, low-symmetry metallic caused different local strains. Our approach enables access time elementary nuclear motion visualize onset dynamics matter nanoscale.