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Ultrafast dynamics of photoexcited carriers and coherent phonons in ultrathin Bi2Te3 thermoelectric films

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Abstract

The ultrafast dynamics of photoexcited carriers and coherent phonons in ultrathin Bi2Te3 thermoelectric films are studied through transient differential transmission spectroscopy. An ultralow frequency coherent optical phonon at 0.16 THz emerges, especially in ultrathin films, and it is ascribed to interlayer breathing modes. It can divide the ultrathin films into two groups which have out-of-phase vibration along the normal of a film plane, causing a destructive interference between in-plane propagating thermal waves in the two groups of quintuple layers, and thus possibly reducing the thermal conductivity of the ultrathin films. The excitation power dependence of ultrafast dynamics reveals carrier-carrier scattering dominating thermalization, which provides a microscopic understanding of the reported high electrical conductivity and anomalously high power factor of ultrathin Bi2Te3 films at room temperature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Zemin Xu & Tianshu Lai

  2. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Nanotechnology Research Center, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Jiandong Yao & Guowei Yang

Authors
  1. Zemin Xu
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  2. Jiandong Yao
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  3. Guowei Yang
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  4. Tianshu Lai
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guowei Yang or Tianshu Lai.

Additional information

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11774438, and 12074441), National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB922403), and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, China (Grant No. 2019A1515011572).

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Xu, Z., Yao, J., Yang, G. et al. Ultrafast dynamics of photoexcited carriers and coherent phonons in ultrathin Bi2Te3 thermoelectric films. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 65, 217312 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-021-1795-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-021-1795-5

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