No Arabic abstract
We have investigated the quasiparticle dynamics and collective excitations in the quasi-one-dimensional material ZrTe$_5$ using ultrafast optical pump-probe spectroscopy. Our time-domain results reveal two coherent oscillations having extremely low energies of $hbaromega_1sim$0.33 meV (0.08 THz) and $hbaromega_2sim$1.9 meV (0.45 THz), which are softened as the temperature approaches two different critical temperatures ($sim$54 K and $sim$135 K). We attribute these two collective excitations to the amplitude mode of charge density wave instabilities in ZrTe$_5$ with tremendously small nesting wave vectors. Furthermore, scattering with the $hbaromega_2$ mode may result in a peculiar quasiparticle decay process with a timescale of $sim$1-2 ps below the transition temperature $T^*$ ($sim$135 K). Our findings provide pivotal information for studying the fluctuating order parameters and their associated quasiparticle dynamics in various low-dimensional topological systems and other materials.
Resistivity, optical, and angle-resolved photoemission experiments reveal unusual one-dimensional electronic properties of highly anisotropic SrNbO$_{3.41}$. Along the conducting chain direction we find an extremely small energy gap of only a few meV at the Fermi level. A discussion in terms of typical 1D instabilities (Peierls, Mott-Hubbard) shows that neither seems to provide a satisfactory explanation for the unique properties of SrNbO$_{3.41}$.
The effects of spin-orbit (SOC) and electron-phonon coupling on the collective excitation of doped monolayer Sb$_2$ are investigated using density functional and many-body perturbation theories. The spin-orbit coupling is exclusively important for the monolayer Sb$_2$ and it leads to the reconstruction of the electronic band structure. In particular, plasmon modes of monolayer Sb$_2$ are quite sensitive to the SOC and are characterized by very low damping rates owing to small electron-phonon scatterings. Our results show plasmons in antimonene are significantly less damped compared to monolayer graphene when plasmon energies are $hbar omega> 0.2$ eV due to smaller plasmon-phonon coupling in the former material.
Anisotropic photonic materials with linear dichroism are crucial components in many sensing, imaging and communication applications. Such materials play an important role as polarizers, filters and wave-plates in photonic devices and circuits. Conventional crystalline materials with optical anisotropy typically show unidirectional linear dichroism over a broad wavelength range. The linear dichroism conversion phenomenon has not been observed in crystalline materials. Here, we report the investigation of the unique linear dichroism conversion phenomenon in quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) hexagonal perovskite chalcogenide BaTiS3. The material shows record level of optical anisotropy within the visible wavelength range. In contrast to conventional anisotropic optical materials, the linear dichroism polarity in BaTiS3 makes an orthogonal change at an optical wavelength corresponding to the photon energy of 1.78 eV. First principle calculations reveal that this anomalous linear dichroism conversion behavior originates from different selection rules of the optical transitions from the parallel bands in the BaTiS3 material. Wavelength dependent polarized Raman spectroscopy further confirms this phenomenon. Such material with linear dichroism conversion property can facilitate new ability to control and sense the energy and polarization of light, and lead to novel photonic devices such as polarization-wavelength selective detectors and lasers for multispectral imaging, sensing and optical communication applications.
The anisotropic nature of the new two-dimensional (2D) material phosphorene, in contrast to other 2D materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors, allows excitons to be confined in a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) space predicted in theory, leading to remarkable phenomena arising from the reduced dimensionality and screening. Here, we report a trion (charged exciton) binding energy of 190 meV in few-layer phosphorene at room temperature, which is nearly one to two orders of magnitude larger than those in 2D TMD semiconductors (20-30 meV) and quasi-2D quantum wells (1-5 meV). Such a large binding energy has only been observed in truly 1D materials such as carbon nanotubes, whose optoelectronic applications have been severely hurdled by their intrinsically small optical cross-sections. Phosphorene offers an elegant way to overcome this hurdle by enabling quasi-1D excitonic and trionic behaviors in a large 2D area, allowing optoelectronic integration. We experimentally validated the quasi-1D nature of excitonic and trionic dynamics in phospherene by demonstrating completely linearly polarized light emission from excitons and trions. The implications of the extraordinarily large trion binding energy in a higher-than-one-dimensional material are far-reaching. It provides a room-temperature 2D platform to observe the fundamental many-body interactions in the quasi-1D region. The strong photoluminescence emission in phosphorene has been electrically tuned over a large spectral range at room temperature, which opens a new route for tunable light sources.
Nanomechanical resonators have demonstrated great potential for use as versatile tools in a number of emerging quantum technologies. For such applications, the performance of these systems is restricted by the decoherence of their fragile quantum states, necessitating a thorough understanding of their dissipative coupling to the surrounding environment. In bulk amorphous solids, these dissipation channels are dominated at low temperatures by parasitic coupling to intrinsic two-level system (TLS) defects, however, there remains a disconnect between theory and experiment on how this damping manifests in dimensionally-reduced nanomechanical resonators. Here, we present an optomechanically-mediated thermal ringdown technique, which we use to perform simultaneous measurements of the dissipation in four mechanical modes of a cryogenically-cooled silicon nanoresonator, with resonant frequencies ranging from 3 - 19 MHz. Analyzing the devices mechanical damping rate at fridge temperatures between 10 mK - 10 K, we demonstrate quantitative agreement with the standard tunneling model for TLS ensembles confined to one dimension. From these fits, we extract the defect density of states ($P_0 sim$ 1 - 4 $times$ 10$^{44}$ J$^{-1}$ m$^{-3}$) and deformation potentials ($gamma sim$ 1 - 2 eV), showing that each mechanical mode couples on average to less than a single thermally-active defect at 10 mK.