Ultrafast infrared light pulses trigger rapid 'breathing' in thin film

Cornell Engineering researchers have demonstrated that, by zapping a synthetic thin film with ultrafast pulses of low-frequency infrared light, they can cause its lattice to atomically expand and contract billions of times per second—strain-driven "breathing" that could potentially be harnessed to quickly switch a material's electronic, magnetic or optical properties on and off.

source https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ultrafast-infrared-pulses-trigger-rapid.html