Understanding Complex Matter Far from Equilibrium and on Elementary Time Scales

This research conference provides a forum for discussion of optically induced non-equilibrium dynamics and photoinduced phase transitions in cooperative condensed-matter systems. The main focus of the conference is on time-dependent properties of fundamental and quasi-particle excitations, induced solid-solid and solid-liquid phase transitions, electronic and magnetic switching phenomena, and ultrafast processes in nanoscale systems. The range of material systems to be considered is intentionally broad and diverse, but common features are shared in their underlying dynamics.

Ultrafast spectroscopy techniques provide the means to investigate these phenomena at the intrinsic timescales of their electronic and atomic motion, offering a unique view of the properties of cooperative systems of condensed matter. It is now possible to generate and detect femtosecond pulses across the electromagnetic spectrum, enabling advanced time-resolved spectroscopic investigations. Ultrafast spectroscopic techniques involving terahertz radiation, x-ray diffraction and absorption, electron diffraction and photoelectron emission provide complementary dynamical information to conventional optical probes. A common feature of these dynamical techniques is that the system investigated is no longer in strict thermodynamic equilibrium. The material under study may be either in an excited state whose decay into other degrees of freedom is being probed, yielding information unavailable to conventional time-averaged approaches in the frequency domain, or in a metastable state with fundamentally different physical properties.

Typical topics include: Ultrafast quasi-particle dynamics in superconductors, colossal magneto-resistance materials, low-dimensional charge and spin density wave compounds, insulators, Kondo systems and heavy fermion compounds; time-domain studies of structural, electronic, magnetic and orbital degrees of freedom; optically induced magnetic, ferroelectric, metal-insulator and solid-liquid phase transitions; ultrafast magnetic and electronic switching phenomena; corelation effects in excitonic systems; ultrafast few-particle and collective effects in solid-state nanosystems; ultrafast dynamics in novel quantum materials such as graphene or topological insulators.