Evidence for photo-induced monoclinic metallic VO₂ under high pressure

We combine ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with a diamond-anvil cell to decouple the insulator-metal electronic transition from the lattice symmetry changing structural transition in the archetypal strongly correlated material vanadium dioxide. Coherent phonon spectroscopy enables tracking of the photo-excited phonon vibrational frequencies of the low temperature, monoclinic (M₁)-insulating phase that transforms into the metallic, tetragonal rutile structured phase at high temperature or via non-thermal photo-excitations. We find that in contrast with ambient pressure experiments where strong photo-excitation promptly induces the electronic transition along with changes in the lattice symmetry, at high pressure, the coherent phonons of the monoclinic (M₁) phase are still clearly observed upon the photo-driven phase transition to a metallic state. These results demonstrate the possibility of synthesizing and studying transient phases under extreme conditions.