We measured the time evolution of the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric constant of GaAs following femtosecond laser pulse excitation. The data show a collapse of the average optical gap, or average bonding-antibonding energy-level separation. The rate of collapse increases with pump fluence. The decrease in the gap indicates that the pump beam induces a structural transformation from a covalent, tetrahedrally coordinated crystal to a phase with metallic cohesive properties.

• Received 10 February 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.49.16403