Bipolaronic Nature of the Pseudogap in Quasi-One-Dimensional (TaSe4)2I Revealed via Weak Photoexcitation

Yingchao Zhang*, Chaitanya Murthy, Tika R. Kafle, Wenjing You, Xun Shi, Lujin Min, Huaiyu Hugo Wang, Na Li, Venkatraman Gopalan, Zhiqiang Mao, Kai Rossnagel, Lexian Yang, Henry Kapteyn, Rahul Nandkishore, Margaret Murnane

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The origin of the pseudogap in many strongly correlated materials has been a longstanding puzzle. Here, we present experimental evidence that many-body interactions among small Holstein polarons, i.e., the formation of bipolarons, are primarily responsible for the pseudogap in (TaSe4)2I. After weak photoexcitation of the material, we observe the appearance of both dispersive (single-particle bare band) and flat bands (single-polaron sub-bands) in the gap by using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Based on Monte Carlo simulations of the Holstein model, we propose that the melting of pseudogap and emergence of new bands originate from a bipolaron to single-polaron crossover. We also observe dramatically different relaxation times for the excited in-gap states in (TaSe4)2I (∼600 fs) compared with another 1D material Rb0.3MoO3 (∼60 fs), which provides a new method for distinguishing between pseudogaps induced by polaronic or Luttinger-liquid many-body interactions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8392-8398
Number of pages7
JournalNano Letters
Volume23
Issue number18
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2023
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Holstein bipolaron
  • Tomonaga−Luttinger liquid
  • pseudogap physics
  • quasi-1D materials
  • time-resolved ARPES
  • ultrafast light-induced phase crossover

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