Recent works have suggested that transient suppression of a charge density wave (CDW) by an ultra-short excitation can lead to an inversion of the CDW phase. We experimentally investigate the dynamics of the CDW in K0.3MoO3 by time resolved x-ray diffraction after excitation with optical pulses. Our results indicate a transient inversion of the CDW phase close to the surface that evolves into a highly disordered state in less than one picosecond. Numerical simulations solving the Ginzburg-Landau equation including disorder from strong pinning defects reproduce our main observations. Our findings highlight the critical role of disorder in schemes for coherent control in condensed matter systems.
@article{arxiv.2601.21030,
title = {Ultrafast Decoherence of Charge Density Waves in K$_{0.3}$MoO$_{3}$},
author = {Rafael T. Winkler and Larissa Boie and Yunpei Deng and Matteo Savoini and Serhane Zerdane and Abhishek Nag and Sabina Gurung and Davide Soranzio and Tim Suter and Vladimir Ovuka and Janine Zemp and Elsa Abreu and Simone Biasco and Roman Mankowsky and Edwin J. Divall and Alexander R. Oggenfuss and Mathias Sander and Christopher Arrell and Danylo Babich and Henrik T. Lemke and Urs Staub and Jure Demsar and Steven L. Johnson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.21030},
year = {2026}
}