Controlling metastability in mesoscopic electronically-ordered systems

Hidden metastability in quantum materials emerged as a powerful tool for generating new functionalities and therefore offers great advantages for technology. However, except for a few cases, all known hidden phases in condensed matter are very short-lived. The proposed project aims at finding the key ingredients required for stabilizing such orders and manipulating their properties in mesoscopic devices. The dynamics of charge- and magnetically-ordered systems, in the limit when the size of the device approaches the characteristic length scale of a single domain will be investigated by a set of fast time-resolved spectroscopies and slower microscopic techniques.