Nonthermal Bonding Origin of a Novel Photoexcited Lattice Instability in SnSe

Yijing Huang; Samuel Teitelbaum; Shan Yang; Gilberto De la Peña; Takahiro Sato; Matthieu Chollet; Diling Zhu; Jennifer L Niedziela; Dipanshu Bansal; Andrew F May; Aaron M Lindenberg; Olivier Delaire; Mariano Trigo; David A Reis

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.156902

Nonthermal Bonding Origin of a Novel Photoexcited Lattice Instability in SnSe

Phys Rev Lett. 2023 Oct 13;131(15):156902. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.156902.

Authors

Yijing Huang^{1

2

3

4}, Samuel Teitelbaum^{2

4

5}, Shan Yang⁶, Gilberto De la Peña^{2

4}, Takahiro Sato⁷, Matthieu Chollet⁷, Diling Zhu⁷, Jennifer L Niedziela^{6

8}, Dipanshu Bansal^{6

9}, Andrew F May⁸, Aaron M Lindenberg^{2

4

10}, Olivier Delaire^{6

11

12}, Mariano Trigo^{2

4}, David A Reis^{2

3

4

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
² Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
³ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
⁴ Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
⁵ Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
⁶ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
⁷ Linac Coherent Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
⁸ Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
⁹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400076, India.
¹⁰ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
¹¹ Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
¹² Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
¹³ Department of Photon Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

PMID: 37897786
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.156902

Abstract

Lattice dynamics measurements are often crucial tools for understanding how materials transform between different structures. We report time-resolved x-ray scattering-based measurements of the nonequilibrium lattice dynamics in SnSe, a monochalcogenide reported to host a novel photoinduced lattice instability. By fitting interatomic force models to the fluence dependent excited-state dispersion, we determine the nonthermal origin of the lattice instability to be dominated by changes of interatomic interactions along a bilayer-connecting bond, rather than of an intralayer bonding network that is of primary importance to the lattice instability in thermal equilibrium.