Chasing the magnetic and structural precursors of the ultrafast insulator-to-metal transition in the prototypical Mott insulator V2O3

We have recently shown [T. Amano et al., Propagating insulator-to-metal transition in the wake of photoinduced strain waves in a Mott material, under review in Nature Physics (2023)] that the ultrafast photoinduced insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) occurs in the prototypical Mott insulator V2O3 via a previously neglected mechanism involving the rapid creation of mechanical stress, followed by its relaxation through the coherent propagation of a strain wave. Yet, the link between the observed photoinduced structural / electronic transformations and the magnetic degrees of freedom remains unknown. Uncovering these connections is relevant to look for new pathways to instil functionality and to draw a still lacking general physical picture of ultrafast IMT’s in quantum materials. In this proposal we aim to cover this gap by investigating the simultaneous development of magnetic and structural x-ray diffraction peaks, so as to fix their causal relation.