This thesis describes key contributions to the fundamental understanding of materials structure and dynamics from a microscopic perspective. In particular, the thesis reports several advancements in time-domain methodologies using ultrafast pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers (FEL) to probe the interactions between electrons and phonons in photoexcited materials. Using femtosecond time-resolved X-ray diffraction, the author quantifies the coherent atomic motion trajectory upon sudden excitation of carriers in SnSe. This allows the reconstruction of the nonequilibrium lattice structure...
This thesis describes key contributions to the fundamental understanding of materials structure and dynamics from a microscopic perspective. In par...