Spatiotemporal Control of Polymorphic Phase Transition of Glycine Crystals by Three-Dimensional Femtosecond Laser Ablation Processing

• Published in: The journal of physical chemistry letters Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 180 - 186
• Main Authors: Takahashi, Hozumi, Yoshimura, Yudai, Murai, Ryota, Kawamura, Ryuzo, Maruyama, Mihoko, Yoshimura, Masashi, Mori, Yusuke, Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Y.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 11.01.2024
• Subjects: Physical Insights into Light Interacting with Matter
• ISSN: 1948-7185; 1948-7185
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02769

Spatiotemporal control of the polymorphic phase transition of glycine crystals was demonstrated by three-dimensional (3D) processing with a focused femtosecond laser pulse as an external stimulus. We found that the transition from a metastable form (β-form) to more stable ones (α- or γ-form) could be triggered from the irradiated area of not only the surface but also inside of glycine crystals. This 3D processing with a focused femtosecond laser pulse enabled us to precisely monitor the transition dynamics from a targeted position to the entire part of crystals. The systematic study with the space-selective phase transition method revealed that the phase transition inside of glycine crystals was significantly slower (e.g., ∼50 times) than that at the crystal surface, which indicates the crucial role of water molecules in air on the phase transition dynamics. We foresee that this laser method can be a practical tool for monitoring spatiotemporal dynamics of phase transition.