The dynamics of first-order electronic phase transitions in complex materials are not well understood but are crucial in understanding the emergent phenomena of electronic phase separation. By reducing the material to the scale of its inherent electronic charge-ordered insulating and ferromagnetic metal phase domains, we are able to directly observe single electronic phase domain fluctuations by balancing at the metal-insulator transition temperature (TMIT). Using this method, we were able to make the first observations on domain fluctuation lifetimes, recognize that the metal-insulator transition is not a smooth process but is comprised of individual domains flipping phase, and that the domains themselves are correlated with other domains along the transport channel. Not only did these findings give us new insights into the fundamental physics of complex materials, they open new functionalities and could be applied as an on-chip digital randomizer as one example.
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