Studies of ultrafast processes in correlated materials using scanning tunnelling microscopeRavnik, Jan (Avtor) Mihailović, Dragan (Mentor) scanning tunneling microscopyphotoinduced phase transitionhidden statepolytype transformation1T-TaS2This thesis is focused on combining the atomically resolved microscopic picture with the ultrafast sub picosecond picture of laser induced phase transitions in 1T-TaS2. The combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and pump-probe measurements, gives insight not only into the microscopic ordering and topological nature of different laser induced states in 1T-TaS2, but also into the conditions at which they are formed and the timescales at which they appear. The layered transition metal dichalcogenide 1T-TaS2 has undergone a recent resurgence of interest with the discovery of a stable hidden state, which can be induced by an ultrashort laser or electrical pulse. Since the transition is fast, the material became a very promising candidate for future cryogenic memory elements. I performed multiple excitation intensity dependent switching experiments at different temperatures in order to construct a phase diagram of photoinduced states in 1T-TaS2. It turns out that optical switching to the hidden state is very robust, while on the other hand switching to the other observed states cannot be controllably reproduced using an 800 nm laser. The threshold fluence for switching to the hidden state appears to be temperature independent, suggesting that only the density of the photoinduced carriers is important for the transition. Other photoinduced states such as the amorphous state and states with different chiralities seem to appear more randomly. At high laser powers, I discovered a novel kind of laser induced transformation that is a single layer polytype transformation from 1T to 1H polytype, where local heating and fast quench play a crucial role in formation of the new state. The polytype transformed layer shows a phase transition between the stripe phase and a network of hexagonal vertices, as seen with STM, which show interesting topological nature. I also examined the domain walls between the domains of different chiralities in 1T-TaS2, which appear to have a non-trivial structure. In order to combine the ultrafast measurements with atomically resolved STM scans, I built a prototype THz gated STM. I built and characterized several THz single cycle pulse sources and used them to excite the STM tip. I observed up to 20 pA of rectified THz current, which is expected enough to observe changes in time resolved measurements. The device was not finalized during my research work, but I am nevertheless showing the interesting and helpful experimental observations in order to make the future optimization of the THz resolved STM easier.20192019-07-14 07:15:07Doktorsko delo/naloga108715VisID: 96141COBISS_ID: 3335780sl