Anomalous non-equilibrium response in black phosphorus to sub-gap mid-infrared excitation

Montanaro A, Giusti F, Zanfrognini M, Di Pietro P, Glerean F, Jarc G, Rigoni EM, Mathengattil SY, Varsano D, Rontani M, Perucchi A, Molinari E, Fausti D (2022)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

Nature Communications Nature Publishing Group: Nature Communications

Book Volume: 13

Article Number: 2667

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30341-4

Abstract

The competition between the electron-hole Coulomb attraction and the 3D dielectric screening dictates the optical properties of layered semiconductors. In low-dimensional materials, the equilibrium dielectric environment can be significantly altered by the ultrafast excitation of photo-carriers, leading to renormalized band gap and exciton binding energies. Recently, black phosphorus emerged as a 2D material with strongly layer-dependent electronic properties. Here, we resolve the response of bulk black phosphorus to mid-infrared pulses tuned across the band gap. We find that, while above-gap excitation leads to a broadband light-induced transparency, sub-gap pulses drive an anomalous response, peaked at the single-layer exciton resonance. With the support of DFT calculations, we tentatively ascribe this experimental evidence to a non-adiabatic modification of the screening environment. Our work heralds the non-adiabatic optical manipulation of the electronic properties of 2D materials, which is of great relevance for the engineering of versatile van der Waals materials.

Authors with CRIS profile

Angela Montanaro
Daniele Fausti

Involved external institutions

Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A. IT Italy (IT) Università degli Studi di Trieste IT Italy (IT) Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) IT Italy (IT) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) / National Research Council of Italy IT Italy (IT)

How to cite

APA:

Montanaro, A., Giusti, F., Zanfrognini, M., Di Pietro, P., Glerean, F., Jarc, G.,... Fausti, D. (2022). Anomalous non-equilibrium response in black phosphorus to sub-gap mid-infrared excitation. Nature Communications, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30341-4

MLA:

Montanaro, Angela, et al. "Anomalous non-equilibrium response in black phosphorus to sub-gap mid-infrared excitation." Nature Communications 13.1 (2022).

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