Ultrafast dynamics of the low frequency shear phonon in 1T′- MoTe 2

We report on the dynamics of coherent phonons in semimetal 1T′- MoTe 2 using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. On an ultrafast sub-picosecond timescale at room temperature, a low frequency and long-lifetime shear phonon mode was observed at 0.39 THz, which was previously reported in the form of a characteristic phonon only in the low temperature T d - MoTe 2 phase. Unlike the other optical phonon modes, the shear phonon mode was found to strongly couple with photoexcited carriers. Moreover, the amplitude of the shear mode surprisingly decreased with increasing excitation density, a phenomenon that can be attributed to be a consequence of the lattice temperature increasing after excitation. These results provide useful physical information on ultrafast lattice symmetry switching between the normal semimetal 1T′ and the lattice inversion symmetry breaking Type-II Weyl semimetal T d phases.