TY - JOUR AU - Schwabe, Stefan AU - Luenser, Klara AU - Schmidt, Daniel AU - Nielsch, Kornelius AU - Gaal, Peter AU - Faehler, Sebastian TI - What is the speed limit of martensitic transformations? JO - Science and technology of advanced materials VL - 23 IS - 1 SN - 1468-6996 CY - Abingdon PB - Taylor & Francis M1 - PUBDB-2022-05117 M1 - I-20200170 SP - 633 - 641 PY - 2022 N1 - OpenAccess AB - Structural martensitic transformations enable various applications, which range from high stroke actuation and sensing to energy efficient magnetocaloric refrigeration and thermomagnetic energy harvesting. All these emerging applications benefit from a fast transformation, but up to now their speed limit has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that a thermoelastic martensite to austenite transformation can be completed within 10 ns. We heat epitaxial Ni-Mn-Ga films with a nanosecond laser pulse and use synchrotron diffraction to probe the influence of initial temperature and overheating on transformation rate and ratio. We demonstrate that an increase in thermal energy drives this transformation faster. Though the observed speed limit of 2.5 × 10<sup>27</sup> (Js)<sup>1</sup> per unit cell leaves plenty of room for further acceleration of applications, our analysis reveals that the practical limit will be the energy required for switching. Thus, martensitic transformations obey similar speed limits as in microelectronics, as expressed by the Margolus – Levitin theorem. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 C6 - 36212679 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000864573500001 DO - DOI:10.1080/14686996.2022.2128870 UR - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/483126 ER -