No Arabic abstract
Black phosphorous (BP) is a layered semiconductor with high carrier mobility, anisotropic optical response and wide bandgap tunability. In view of its application in optoelectronic devices, understanding transient photo-induced effects is crucial. Here, we investigate by time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy BP in its pristine state and in the presence of Stark splitting, chemically induced by Cs ad-sorption. We show that photo-injected carriers trigger bandgap renormalization and a concurrent valence band attening caused by Pauli blocking. In the biased sample, photoexcitation leads to a long-lived (ns) surface photovoltage of few hundreds mV that counterbalances the Cs-induced surface band bending. This allows us to disentangle bulk from surface electronic states and to clarify the mechanism underlying the band inversion observed in bulk samples.
The dynamics of band-gap renormalization and gain build-up in monolayer MoTe$_2$ is investigated by evaluating the non-equilibrium Dirac-Bloch equations with the incoherent carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon scattering treated via quantum-Boltzmann type scattering equations. For the case where an approximately $300$ fs-long high intensity optical pulse generates charge-carrier densities in the gain regime, the strong Coulomb coupling leads to a relaxation of excited carriers on a few fs time scale. The pump-pulse generation of excited carriers induces a large band-gap renormalization during the time scale of the pulse. Efficient phonon coupling leads to a subsequent carrier thermalization within a few ps, which defines the time scale for the optical gain build-up energetically close to the low-density exciton resonance.
We experimentally investigate charge transport through the interface between a gold electrode and a black phosphorus single crystal. The experimental $dI/dV(V)$ curves are characterized by well developed zero-bias conductance peak and two strongly different branches. We find that two branches of asymmetric $dI/dV(V)$ curves correspond to different band gap limits, which is consistent with the theoretically predicted band gap reconstruction at the surface of black phosphorus under electric field. This conclusion is confirmed by experimental comparison with the symmetric curves for narrow-gap (WTe$_2$) and wide-gap (GaSe) metal-semiconductor structures. In addition, we demonstrate p-type dopants redistribution at high bias voltages of different sign, which opens a way to use the interface structures with black phosphorus in resistive memory applications.
Nanophononics is essential for the engineering of thermal transport in nanostructured electronic devices, it greatly facilitates the manipulation of mechanical resonators in the quantum regime, and could unveil a new route in quantum communications using phonons as carriers of information. Acoustic phonons also constitute a versatile platform for the study of fundamental wave dynamics, including Bloch oscillations, Wannier Stark ladders and other localization phenomena. Many of the phenomena studied in nanophononics were indeed inspired by their counterparts in optics and electronics. In these fields, the consideration of topological invariants to control wave dynamics has already had a great impact for the generation of robust confined states. Interestingly, the use of topological phases to engineer nanophononic devices remains an unexplored and promising field. Conversely, the use of acoustic phonons could constitute a rich platform to study topological states. Here, we introduce the concept of topological invariants to nanophononics and experimentally implement a nanophononic system supporting a robust topological interface state at 350 GHz. The state is constructed through band inversion, i.e. by concatenating two semiconductor superlattices with inverted spatial mode symmetries. The existence of this state is purely determined by the Zak phases of the constituent superlattices, i.e. that one-dimensional Berry phase. We experimentally evidenced the mode through Raman spectroscopy. The reported robust topological interface states could become part of nanophononic devices requiring resonant structures such as sensors or phonon lasers.
High-doping induced Urbach tails and band gap narrowing play a significant role in determining the performance of tunneling devices and optoelectronic devices such as tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs), Esaki diodes and light-emitting diodes. In this work, Urbach tails and band gap narrowing values are calculated explicitly for GaAs, InAs, GaSb and GaN as well as ultra-thin bodies and nanowires of the same. Electrons are solved in the non-equilibrium Greens function method in multi-band atomistic tight binding. Scattering on polar optical phonons and charged impurities is solved in the self-consistent Born approximation. The corresponding nonlocal scattering self-energies as well as their numerically efficient formulations are introduced for ultra-thin bodies and nanowires. Predicted Urbach band tails and conduction band gap narrowing agree well with experimental literature for a range of temperatures and doping concentrations. Polynomial fits of the Urbach tail and band gap narrowing as a function of doping are tabulated for quick reference.
The quasiparticle band-gap renormalization induced by the doped carriers is an important and well-known feature in two-dimensional semiconductors, including transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and it is of both theoretical and practical interest. To get a quantitative understanding of this effect, here we calculate the quasiparticle band-gap renormalization of the electron-doped monolayer MoS$_2$, a prototypical member of TMDs. The many-body electron-electron interaction induced renormalization of the self-energy is found within the random phase approximation and to account for the quasi-2D character of the Coulomb interaction in this system a Keldysh-type interaction with a nonlocal dielectric constant is used. Considering the renormalization of both the valence and the conduction bands, our calculations reveal a large and nonlinear band-gap renormalization upon adding free carriers to the conduction band. We find a 410 meV reduction of the band gap for the monolayer MoS$_2$ on SiO$_2$ substrate at the free carrier density $n=4.9times 10^{12} rm{cm^{-2}}$ which is in excellent agreement with available experimental results. We also discuss the role of exchange and correlation parts of the self-energy on the overall band-gap renormalization of the system. The strong dependence of the band-gap renormalization on the surrounding dielectric environment is also demonstrated in this work, and a much larger shrinkage of the band gap is predicted for the freestanding monolayer MoS$_2$.