2024/03/13 by D. Nevola, Niraj Aryal, Nevola, D. +9
Chemistry · Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Inorganic Chemistry and Materials #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Phase-change materials and chalcogenides #Solid-state spectroscopy and crystallography
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.08881
openalex publication_date 2024/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
We study the non-equilibrium electronic structure of a model Dirac semimetal ZrTe5 by using time-and-angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory-based electron and phonon calculations. By measuring the electronic dispersion near the Γ point at time delays up to 10 picoseconds, we discovered that the band spectral weight does not recover during the measured temporal window, revealing the existence of light induced metastable state in the electronic structure of this material. Our calculations find that the photoexcited A1g phonon mode lead to a band renormalization that both supports our experimental observations at the zone center and predicts changes to the band structure outside of our experimental window, ultimately showing the evolution from a direct to an indirect gap semimetal; such band renormalization dramatically reduces the electron-hole recombination rate giving rise to the metastability in this system.