Limitations of Debye-Waller lattice temperature extraction under electronic excitation

Abstract: Ultrafast diffraction is the cutting-edge technique to extract the atomic temperature at femtosecond timescales, and further related quantities - in particular, electron-phonon coupling strength at elevated electronic temperatures. The present work demonstrates limitations of such an analysis, emphasizing the importance of careful evaluation of the evolution of the Debye temperature. It is shown that, due to the sensitivity of the Debye-Waller analysis to this parameter, neglecting its changes under electronic excitation may lead to significant deviations of the atomic temperature extracted from its true values.