Abstract-Terahertz probe of photoexcited carrier dynamics in the Dirac semimetal Cd 3 As 2

Wei Lu, Jiwei Ling, Faxian Xiu, and Dong Sun

https://journals.aps.org/prb/accepted/bf077O78H3311337d63c5641b9f821c1375d6544c

The relaxation dynamics of photoexcited quasiparticles of three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetals are vital towards their application in high performance electronic and optoelectronic devices. In this work, the relaxation dynamics of photoexcited carriers of 3D Dirac semimetal Cd${}_3$As${}_2$ are investigated by transient terahertz spectroscopy. The visible pump-THz probe spectroscopy measurement shows clear biexponential decays with two characteristic time constants. According to the pump-power and temperature dependence, these two characteristic time constants are attributed to the electron phonon coupling (1-4 ps) and anharmonic decay of hot coupled phonons to electronic uncoupled phonons (2-9 ps), respectively. An anomalous electron-optical phonon coupling reduction and a bottleneck slowing of hot optical phonons relaxation are observed with higher excitation intensities similar to that in graphene. On the other hand, the electron-optical phonon coupling can be enhanced due to the phonon frequency broadening and softening at elevated lattice temperature. Furthermore, the transient THz spectrum response is strongly modified by the phonon assisted intraband absorption of hot carriers from a pure electronic Drude model, which is evidenced by a characteristic THz absorption dip in the transient THz absorption spectrum. This absorption dip is pinned by the mixing of discrete optical phonon energies that assist the intraband transition enabled by photoexcitation of hot carriers.