Bibliographic Details
| Title: |
Persistent photogenerated state attained by femtosecond laser irradiation of thin $T_d$-MoTe$_2$ |
| Authors: |
Cheng, Meixin, Zhong, Shazhou, Rivas, Nicolás, Dekker, Tina, Petruk, Ariel Alcides, Gicala, Patrick, Pichugin, Kostyantyn, Chen, Fangchu, Luo, Xuan, Sun, Yuping, Tsen, Adam W., Sciaini, Germán |
| Publication Year: |
2022 |
| Collection: |
Condensed Matter |
| Subject Terms: |
Condensed Matter - Materials Science |
| More Details: |
Laser excitation has emerged as a means to expose hidden states of matter and promote phase transitions on demand. Such laser induced transformations are often rendered possible owing to the delivery of spatially and/or temporally manipulated light, carrying energy quanta well above the thermal background. Here, we report time-resolved broadband femtosecond (fs) transient absorption measurements on thin flakes of Weyl semimetal candidate $T_d$-MoTe$_2$ subjected to various levels and schemes of fs-photoexcitation. Our results reveal that impulsive fs-laser irradiation alters the interlayer behavior of the low temperature $T_d$ phase as evidenced by the persistent disappearance of its characteristic coherent $^1$A$_1$ $=$ 13 cm$^{-1}$ shear phonon mode. We found that this structural transformation withstands thermal annealing up to 500 K, although it can be reverted to the 1$T$\' phase by fs-laser treatment at room temperature. Our work opens the door to reversible optical control of topological properties.
Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, plus supporting information |
| Document Type: |
Working Paper |
| Access URL: |
http://arxiv.org/abs/2205.09792 |
| Accession Number: |
edsarx.2205.09792 |
| Database: |
arXiv |
