Molecular solids with cooperative electronic properties based purely on π electrons from carbon atoms offer a fertile ground in the search for exotic states of matter, including unconventional superconductivity and quantum magnetism. In particular, mild synthetic conditions allowed isolation of crystalline alkali metal polyaromatic hydrocarbon solids derived from phenanthrene that emerged as excellent candidates of quantum spin liquids. The purpose of the present experiments was to investigate the temperature response of the crystalline structures of both alkali phenantride salts and their analogues derived from our attempts to intercalate other polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
BiFeO3 (BFO) has coexisting ferroelectric and magnetic order at 300 K and electromagnon modes that can shed light on the coupling between them. Our goal was to use intense THz pulses to pump these modes and probe the resulting lattice displacements with time-resolved XRD to obtain microscopic insight into the relationship between structural dynamics and photoinduced polarization changes in BFO.