Controlling a phase of matter by coherently manipulating specific vibrational modes has long been an attractive (yet elusive) goal for ultrafast science. Solids with strongly correlated electrons, in which even subtle crystallographic distortions can result in colossal changes of the electronic and magnetic properties, could be directed between competing phases by such selective vibrational excitation. In this way, the dynamics of the electronic ground state of the system become accessible, and new insight into the underlying physics might be gained. Here we report the ultrafast switching of the electronic phase of a magnetoresistive manganite via direct excitation of a phonon mode at 71 meV (17 THz). A prompt, five-order-of-magnitude drop in resistivity is observed, associated with a non-equilibrium transition from the stable insulating phase to a metastable metallic phase. In contrast with light-induced, and current-driven phase transitions, the vibrationally driven bandgap collapse observed here is not related to hot-carrier injection and is uniquely attributed to a large-amplitude Mn-O distortion. This corresponds to a perturbation of the perovskite-structure tolerance factor, which in turn controls the electronic bandwidth via inter-site orbital overlap. Phase control by coherent manipulation of selected metal--oxygen phonons should find extensive application in other complex solids--notably in copper oxide superconductors, in which the role of Cu-O vibrations on the electronic properties is currently controversial.

Interaction of an electron beam with a femtosecond laser pulseco-propagating through a wiggler modulates the electronenergies within a short slice of the electron bunch comparable with the duration of the laser pulse (Figure 1). Propagating around an electron storage ring, this bunch develops a longitudinal density perturbation due to the dispersion of electron trajectories. Figure 1 shows how this creates femtosecond electron bunch wings which are used for femtosecond x-ray light. In addition, this density perturbation emits temporally and spatially coherent tera-hertz pulses whichare inherently synchronized to the modulating laser. This gives us a new way to study coherent synchrotron radaition, and creates an opportunity for tuning the THz emmission specifically for the needs of a given experiment.

At the Advanced Light Source (ALS), the 'femtoslicing' beamline is in operation since 1999 for the production of x-ray synchrotron radiation pulses with femtosecond duration. The mechanism used for generating the short x-ray pulses induces at the same time temporary structures in the electron bunch longitudinal distribution with very short characteristic length. Such structures emit intense coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency range. These CSR pulses were first observed at the ALS, and the measurement of their intensity is now routinely used as a diagnostics for the tune-up of the femtoslicing x-ray experiments. At the same time, these CSR pulses synchronous with the modulating laser, represent a potential source of terahertz radiation with very interesting features. Several measurements have been performed for their characterization and in this paper we present an updated description of the experimental results and of their interpretation. In particular, we include more data on the interesting interaction, previously observed at the ALS, between the slicing and the microbunching instability (MBI), where under particular circumstances, the slicing seems to trigger the onset of the instability.

We directly measure the photoinduced insulator-to-metal transition in VO2 using time-resolved near-edge x-ray absorption. Picosecond pulses of synchrotron radiation are used to detect the redshift in the vanadium L3edge at 516 eV, which is associated with the transient collapse of the low-temperature band gap. We identify a two-component temporal response, corresponding to an ultrafast transformation over a 50 nm surface layer, followed by 40 m/s thermal growth of the metallic phase into the bulk.