Laser-induced quenching of metastability at the Mott-insulator to metal transition

There is growing interest in strongly correlated insulator thin films because the intricate interplay of their intrinsic and extrinsic state variables causes memristive behavior that might be used for bio-mimetic devices in the emerging field of neuromorphic computing. In this study we find that laser irradiation tends to drive V$_2$O$_3$ from supercooled/superheated metastable states towards thermodynamic equilibrium, most likely in a non-thermal way. We study thin films of the prototypical Mott-insulator V$_2$O$_3$, which show spontaneous phase separation into metal-insulator herringbone domains during the Mott transition. Here, we use low-temperature microscopy to investigate how these metal-insulator domains can be modified by scanning a focused laser beam across the thin film surface. We find that the response depends on the thermal history: When the thin film is heated from below the Mott transition temperature, the laser beam predominantly induces metallic domains. On the contrary, when the thin film is cooled from a temperature above the transition, the laser beam predominantly induces insulating domains. Very likely, the V$_2$O$_3$ thin film is in a superheated or supercooled state, respectively, during the first-order phase transition, and the perturbation by a laser beam drives these metastable states into stable ones. This way, the thermal history is locally erased. Our findings are supported by a phenomenological model with a laser-induced lowering of the energy barrier between the metastable and equilibrium states.