It is well known that sufficiently thick metals irradiated with ultrafast laser pulses exhibit phonon hardening, in contrast to ultrafast nonthermal melting in covalently bonded materials. It is still an open question how finite size metals react to irradiation. We show theoretically that generally metals, under high electronic excitation, undergo nonthermal phase transitions if material expansion is allowed (e.g. in finite samples). The nonthermal phase transitions are induced via an increase of the electronic pressure which leads to metal expansion. This, in turn, destabilizes the lattice triggering a phase transition without a thermal electron-ion coupling mechanism involved. We find that hexagonal close-packed metals exhibit a diffusionless transition into a cubic phase, whereas metals with a cubic lattice melt. In contrast to covalent solids, nonthermal phase transitions in metals are not ultrafast, predicative on the lattice expansion.

Department of Radiation and Chemical Physics Institute of Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Na Slovance 2 182 21 Prague 8 Czech Republic

Industrial Focus Group XUV Optics MESA Institute for Nanotechnology University of Twente Drienerlolaan 5 7522 NB Enschede The Netherlands

Laser Plasma Department Institute of Plasma Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Za Slovankou 3 182 00 Prague 8 Czech Republic

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Effect of Atomic-Temperature Dependence of the Electron-Phonon Coupling in Two-Temperature Model

Electron-Phonon Coupling and Nonthermal Effects in Gold Nano-Objects at High Electronic Temperatures