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Nonthermal nature of photoinduced insulator-to-metal transition in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi>NbO</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:math>
We study the photoinduced metallization process in niobium dioxide ${\mathrm{NbO}}_{2}$. This compound undergoes the thermal insulator-to-metal transition at the remarkably high temperature of 1080 K. Our optical pump-terahertz probe measurements reveal the ultrafast switching of the film on a subpicosecond timescale and the formation of a metastable metallic phase when …