Glasses are formed when liquids are cooled fast enough and far enough [1]. Both criteria must be fulfilled to avoid crystallization during cooling, because thermodynamically, the crystalline state is always favorable. Therefore, thermodynamics alone cannot explain glass formation and the limiting cooling parameters are determined by the kinetic properties of a supercooled liquid. That is why...
Due to a lack of relevant experimental data, the physical mechanisms of non-equilibrium melting and solidification (crystallization or vitrification) of metals are not fully understood. Conventional structural probes remain useless for direct observations of those transitions as they occur on an ultrashort time scale, usually from pico- to nanoseconds. As a result, their current understanding...
Very hard XFEL radiation will enable a diversity of scattering studies of fundamental and functional behavior of quantum materials. With extreme pulsed magnetic fields (PMF) one may create novel electronic states, activate functional properties, and trigger non-equilibrium behavior, all of which can be probed by hard XFEL radiation. Competing charge and/or spin order in high-temperature...
A key aspect of molecular (photo-) catalysis is to optimize how much of the input energy is useful towards forming the desired photoproducts. For rational design of novel catalysts it is therefore of high importance to be able to determine how the input energy is re-distributed on internal and external Degrees of Freedom such as vibrational excitations and energy loss to the surroundings....
Modern ultrafast technologies have opened new perspectives in controlling bistable magnetic materials, where light can be used to switch between different phases and thus different properties [1]. Ultrafast photo-switching within bistability regimes indeed promises enhanced control of bistability down to ultrashort timescales.
Among the available bistable materials, Prussian Blue Analogues...
