- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Microscopic mechanism of displacive excitation of coherent phonons in a bulk Rashba semiconductor

P. Fischer1, J. Bär1, M. Cimander1, L. Feuerer1, V. Wiechert1, O. Tereshchenko2, and D. Bossini1

PDF

Phys. Rev. B 111, L081201 – Published 4 February, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L081201

Abstract

Changing the macroscopic properties of quantum materials by optically activating collective lattice excitations has recently become a major trend in solid state physics. One of the most commonly employed light-matter interaction routes is the displacive mechanism. However, the fundamental contribution to this process remains elusive, as the effects of free-carrier density modification and raised effective electronic temperature have not been disentangled yet. Here we use time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy to address this issue in the Rashba semiconductor BiTeI. Exploring the conventional regime of electronic interband transitions for different excitation wavelengths as well as the barely accessed regime of electronic intraband transitions, we answer this question regarding the displacive mechanism: the lattice modes are predominantly driven by the rise of the effective electronic temperature. In the intraband regime, which allows an increase of the effective carrier temperature while leaving the carrier density unaffected, the phonon coherence time does not display significant fluence-dependent variations. Our results thus reveal a pathway to displacive excitation of coherent phonons, free from additional scattering and dissipation mechanisms typically associated with an increase of the free-carrier density.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (44)

  1. K. W. Kim, A. Pashkin, H. Schäfer, M. Beyer, M. Porer, T. Wolf, C. Bernhard, J. Demsar, R. Huber, and A. Leitenstorfer, Ultrafast transient generation of spin-density-wave order in the normal state of BaFe2As2 driven by coherent lattice vibrations, Nat. Mater. 11, 497 (2012).
  2. T. F. Nova, A. Cartella, A. Cantaluppi, M. Först, D. Bossini, R. V. Mikhaylovskiy, A. V. Kimel, R. Merlin, and A. Cavalleri, An effective magnetic field from optically driven phonons, Nat. Phys. 13, 132 (2017).
  3. T. F. Nova, A. S. Disa, M. Fechner, and A. Cavalleri, Metastable ferroelectricity in optically strained SrTiO3, Science 364, 1075 (2019).
  4. D. Fausti, R. I. Tobey, N. Dean, S. Kaiser, A. Dienst, M. C. Hoffmann, S. Pyon, T. Takayama, H. Takagi, and A. Cavalleri, Light-induced superconductivity in a stripe-ordered cuprate, Science 331, 189 (2011).
  5. S. Wall, D. Wegkamp, L. Foglia, K. Appavoo, J. Nag, R. Haglund, J. Stähler, and M. Wolf, Ultrafast changes in lattice symmetry probed by coherent phonons, Nat. Commun. 3, 721 (2012).
  6. F. Mertens, D. Mönkebüscher, U. Parlak, C. Boix-Constant, S. Mañas-Valero, M. Matzer, R. Adhikari, A. Bonanni, E. Coronado, A. M. Kalashnikova, D. Bossini, and M. Cinchetti, Ultrafast coherent THz lattice dynamics coupled to spins in the van der Waals antiferromagnet FePS3, Adv. Mater. 35, 2208355 (2023).
  7. T. K. Cheng, S. D. Brorson, A. S. Kazeroonian, J. S. Moodera, G. Dresselhaus, M. S. Dresselhaus, and E. P. Ippen, Impulsive excitation of coherent phonons observed in reflection in bismuth and antimony, Appl. Phys. Lett. 57, 1004 (1990).
  8. G. C. Cho, W. Kütt, and H. Kurz, Subpicosecond time-resolved coherent-phonon oscillations in GaAs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 764 (1990).
  9. H. J. Zeiger, J. Vidal, T. K. Cheng, E. P. Ippen, G. Dresselhaus, and M. S. Dresselhaus, Theory for displacive excitation of coherent phonons, Phys. Rev. B 45, 768 (1992).
  10. E. D. Murray, D. M. Fritz, J. K. Wahlstrand, S. Fahy, and D. A. Reis, Effect of lattice anharmonicity on high-amplitude phonon dynamics in photoexcited bismuth, Phys. Rev. B 72, 060301(R) (2005).
  11. D. M. Fritz, D. A. Reis, B. Adams, R. A. Akre, J. Arthur, C. Blome, P. H. Bucksbaum, A. L. Cavalieri, S. Engemann, S. Fahy, R. W. Falcone, P. H. Fuoss, K. J. Gaffney, M. J. George, J. Hajdu, M. P. Hertlein, P. B. Hillyard, M. Horn-von Hoegen, M. Kammler, J. Kaspar et al., Ultrafast bond softening in bismuth: Mapping a solid's interatomic potential with x-rays, Science 315, 633 (2007).
  12. F. Giorgianni, M. Udina, T. Cea, E. Paris, M. Caputo, M. Radovic, L. Boie, J. Sakai, C. W. Schneider, and S. L. Johnson, Terahertz displacive excitation of a coherent Raman-active phonon in V2O3, Commun. Phys. 5, 103 (2022).
  13. R. Merlin, Generating coherent THz phonons with light pulses, Solid State Commun. 102, 207 (1997).
  14. T. E. Stevens, J. Kuhl, and R. Merlin, Coherent phonon generation and the two stimulated Raman tensors, Phys. Rev. B 65, 144304 (2002).
  15. A. A. Makhnev, L. V. Nomerovannaya, T. V. Kuznetsova, O. E. Tereshchenko, and K. A. Kokh, Optical properties of BiTeI semiconductor with a strong Rashba spin-orbit interaction, Opt. Spectrosc. 117, 764 (2014).
  16. W. Kutt, G. C. Cho, T. Pfeifer, and H. Kurz, Subpicosecond generation and decay of coherent phonons in III-V compounds, Semicond. Sci. Technol. 7, B77 (1992).
  17. O. V. Misochko, Coherent phonons and their properties, J. Exp. Theor. Phys. 92, 246 (2001).
  18. K. J. Yee, K. G. Lee, E. Oh, D. S. Kim, and Y. S. Lim, Coherent optical phonon oscillations in bulk GaN excited by far below the band gap photons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 105501 (2002).
  19. M. Hase, S.-I. Nakashima, K. Mizoguchi, H. Harima, and K. Sakai, Ultrafast decay of coherent plasmon-phonon coupled modes in highly doped GaAs, Phys. Rev. B 60, 16526 (1999).
  20. I. Y. Sklyadneva, R. Heid, K.-P. Bohnen, V. Chis, V. A. Volodin, K. A. Kokh, O. E. Tereshchenko, P. M. Echenique, and E. V. Chulkov, Lattice dynamics of bismuth tellurohalides, Phys. Rev. B 86, 094302 (2012).
  21. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L081201 for details concerning the laser system, the analysis of the electronic background and the coherent oscillations, and the optical parameters of BiTeI.
  22. C. Schoenfeld, L. Feuerer, A. Heinrich, A. Leitenstorfer, and D. Bossini, Nonlinear generation, compression and spatio-temporal analysis of sub-GV/cm-class femtosecond mid-infrared transients, Laser Photon. Rev. 18, 2301152 (2024).
  23. K. Ishizaka, M. S. Bahramy, H. Murakawa, M. Sakano, T. Shimojima, T. Sonobe, K. Koizumi, S. Shin, H. Miyahara, A. Kimura, K. Miyamoto, T. Okuda, H. Namatame, M. Taniguchi, R. Arita, N. Nagaosa, K. Kobayashi, Y. Murakami, R. Kumai, Y. Kaneko et al., Giant Rashba-type spin splitting in bulk BiTeI, Nat. Mater. 10, 521 (2011).
  24. E. Rashba, Semiconductors with a loop of extrema, J. Electron Spectrosc. Relat. Phenom. 201, 4 (2015).
  25. L. Demkó, G. A. H. Schober, V. Kocsis, M. S. Bahramy, H. Murakawa, J. S. Lee, I. Kézsmárki, R. Arita, N. Nagaosa, and Y. Tokura, Enhanced infrared magneto-optical response of the nonmagnetic semiconductor BiTeI driven by bulk Rashba splitting, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 167401 (2012).
  26. M. S. Bahramy, R. Arita, and N. Nagaosa, Origin of giant bulk Rashba splitting: Application to BiTeI, Phys. Rev. B 84, 041202(R) (2011).
  27. J. S. Lee, G. A. H. Schober, M. S. Bahramy, H. Murakawa, Y. Onose, R. Arita, N. Nagaosa, and Y. Tokura, Optical response of relativistic electrons in the polar BiTeI semiconductor, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 117401 (2011).
  28. A. S. Ketterl, B. Andres, M. Polverigiani, V. Voroshnin, C. Gahl, K. A. Kokh, O. E. Tereshchenko, E. V. Chulkov, A. Shikin, and M. Weinelt, Effect of Rashba splitting on ultrafast carrier dynamics in BiTeI, Phys. Rev. B 103, 085406 (2021).
  29. R. Loudon, The Quantum Theory of Light, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000).
  30. H. Fröhlich, Electrons in lattice fields, Adv. Phys. 3, 325 (1954).
  31. P. Yu and M. Cardona, Fundamentals of Semiconductors, 3rd ed. (Springer, Berlin, 2005).
  32. J. Mauchain, Y. Ohtsubo, M. Hajlaoui, E. Papalazarou, M. Marsi, A. Taleb-Ibrahimi, J. Faure, K. A. Kokh, O. E. Tereshchenko, S. V. Eremeev, E. V. Chulkov, and L. Perfetti, Circular dichroism and superdiffusive transport at the surface of BiTeI, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 126603 (2013).
  33. T. K. Cheng, J. Vidal, H. J. Zeiger, G. Dresselhaus, M. S. Dresselhaus, and E. P. Ippen, Mechanism for displacive excitation of coherent phonons in Sb, Bi, Te, and Ti2O3, Appl. Phys. Lett. 59, 1923 (1991).
  34. G. A. Garrett, T. F. Albrecht, J. F. Whitaker, and R. Merlin, Coherent THz phonons driven by light pulses and the Sb problem: What is the mechanism? Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 3661 (1996).
  35. M. Hase, K. Mizoguchi, H. Harima, S.-I. Nakashima, and K. Sakai, Dynamics of coherent phonons in bismuth generated by ultrashort laser pulses, Phys. Rev. B 58, 5448 (1998).
  36. C. Giannetti, B. Revaz, F. Banfi, M. Montagnese, G. Ferrini, F. Cilento, S. Maccalli, P. Vavassori, G. Oliviero, E. Bontempi, L. E. Depero, V. Metlushko, and F. Parmigiani, Thermomechanical behavior of surface acoustic waves in ordered arrays of nanodisks studied by near-infrared pump-probe diffraction experiments, Phys. Rev. B 76, 125413 (2007).
  37. D. M. Juraschek and S. F. Maehrlein, Sum-frequency ionic Raman scattering, Phys. Rev. B 97, 174302 (2018).
  38. M. Först, Y. Tokura, C. Manzoni, S. Kaiser, Y. Tomioka, R. Merlin, R. Merlin, and A. Cavalleri, Nonlinear phononics as an ultrafast route to lattice control, Nat. Phys. 7, 854 (2011).
  39. A. Crepaldi, L. Moreschini, G. Autès, C. Tournier-Colletta, S. Moser, N. Virk, H. Berger, P. Bugnon, Y. J. Chang, K. Kern, A. Bostwick, E. Rotenberg, O. V. Yazyev, and M. Grioni, Giant ambipolar Rashba effect in the semiconductor BiTeI, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 096803 (2012).
  40. L. Cheng, L. Wei, H. Liang, Y. Yan, G. Cheng, M. Lv, T. Lin, T. Kang, G. Yu, J. Chu, Z. Zhang, and C. Zeng, Optical manipulation of Rashba spin-orbit coupling at SrTiO3-based oxide interfaces, Nano Lett. 17, 6534 (2017).
  41. G. Kremer, J. Maklar, L. Nicolaï, C. W. Nicholson, C. Yue, C. Silva, P. Werner, J. H. Dil, J. Krempaský, G. Springholz, R. Ernstorfer, J. Minár, L. Rettig, and C. Monney, Field-induced ultrafast modulation of Rashba coupling at room temperature in ferroelectric α-GeTe(111), Nat. Commun. 13, 6396 (2022).
  42. S. T. Ciocys, N. Maksimovic, J. G. Analytis, and A. Lanzara, Driving ultrafast spin and energy modulation in quantum well states via photo-induced electric fields, npj Quantum Mater. 7, 79 (2022).
  43. M. Michiardi, F. Boschini, H.-H. Kung, M. X. Na, S. K. Y. Dufresne, A. Currie, G. Levy, S. Zhdanovich, A. K. Mills, D. J. Jones, J. L. Mi, B. B. Iversen, P. Hofmann, and A. Damascelli, Optical manipulation of Rashba-split 2-dimensional electron gas, Nat. Commun. 13, 3096 (2022).
  44. J. Qu, E. F. Cuddy, X. Han, J. Liu, H. Li, Y.-J. Zeng, B. Moritz, T. P. Devereaux, P. S. Kirchmann, Z.-X. Shen, and J. A. Sobota, Screening of polar electron-phonon interactions near the surface of the Rashba semiconductor BiTeCl, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 106401 (2024).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 111, L081201– Published 4 February, 2025
  • Received 11 October 2024
  • Revised 23 December 2024
  • Accepted 22 January 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation