Intrinsic 1[Formula: see text] phase induced in atomically thin 2H-MoTe2 by a single terahertz pulse

Jiaojian Shi; Ya-Qing Bie; Alfred Zong; Shiang Fang; Wei Chen; Jinchi Han; Zhaolong Cao; Yong Zhang; Takashi Taniguchi; Kenji Watanabe; Xuewen Fu; Vladimir Bulović; Efthimios Kaxiras; Edoardo Baldini; Pablo Jarillo-Herrero; Keith A Nelson

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-41291-w

Intrinsic 1[Formula: see text] phase induced in atomically thin 2H-MoTe₂ by a single terahertz pulse

Nat Commun. 2023 Sep 22;14(1):5905. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41291-w.

Authors

Jiaojian Shi^#¹, Ya-Qing Bie^#^{2

3}, Alfred Zong^#^{2

4}, Shiang Fang^{5

6

7}, Wei Chen⁵, Jinchi Han^{8

9}, Zhaolong Cao³, Yong Zhang¹⁰, Takashi Taniguchi¹¹, Kenji Watanabe¹², Xuewen Fu¹³, Vladimir Bulović⁸, Efthimios Kaxiras⁵, Edoardo Baldini¹⁴, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero², Keith A Nelson¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
² Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
³ State Key Lab of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People's Republic of China.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA.
⁵ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.
⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Center for Materials Theory, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA.
⁷ Present Address: Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
⁸ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
⁹ School of Integrated Circuits, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 People's Republic of China.
¹⁰ Center for Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
¹¹ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044 Japan.
¹² Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044 Japan.
¹³ Ultrafast Electron Microscopy Laboratory, The MOE Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, School of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071 People's Republic of China.
¹⁴ Department of Physics, Center for Complex Quantum System, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The polymorphic transition from 2H to 1[Formula: see text]-MoTe₂, which was thought to be induced by high-energy photon irradiation among many other means, has been intensely studied for its technological relevance in nanoscale transistors due to the remarkable improvement in electrical performance. However, it remains controversial whether a crystalline 1[Formula: see text] phase is produced because optical signatures of this putative transition are found to be associated with the formation of tellurium clusters instead. Here we demonstrate the creation of an intrinsic 1[Formula: see text] lattice after irradiating a mono- or few-layer 2H-MoTe₂ with a single field-enhanced terahertz pulse. Unlike optical pulses, the low terahertz photon energy limits possible structural damages. We further develop a single-shot terahertz-pump-second-harmonic-probe technique and reveal a transition out of the 2H-phase within 10 ns after photoexcitation. Our results not only provide important insights to resolve the long-standing debate over the light-induced polymorphic transition in MoTe₂ but also highlight the unique capability of strong-field terahertz pulses in manipulating quantum materials.

Abstract

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