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arXiv · 2407.12606

Impact of terahertz short pulses on the oxygen defect state in TiO$_{2-x}$

Paola Di Pietro·Johannes Schmidt·Nidhi Adhlakha·Sandeep Kumar Chaluvadi·Federico Mazzola·Veronica Stopponi·Luca Tomarchio·Pasquale Orgiani·Stefano Lupi·Andrea Perucchi
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Abstract

Oxygen deficient titanium dioxide (TiO$_{2-x}$) is a very attractive material for several applications ranging from photocatalysis to resistive switching. Oxygen vacancies turn insulating anatase titanium dioxide into a polaronic conductor, while creating a defect state band below the ultraviolet semiconducting gap. Here we employ a combination of broadband infrared (IR) reflectivity and THz-pump/IR-probe measurements to investigate the relationship between localized defect states and delocalized conducting polaronic states. We show that the THz pump allows to convert deeply localized electrons into metastable polarons with a lifetime in the ns range. These long-lived metastable states may find application in novel opto-electronic applications exploiting the interplay of dc resistivity, with terahertz and infrared signals.

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Paola Di Pietro, Johannes Schmidt, Nidhi Adhlakha, Sandeep Kumar Chaluvadi, Federico Mazzola, Veronica Stopponi, Luca Tomarchio, Pasquale Orgiani, Stefano Lupi, Andrea Perucchi. 2024-07-17. Impact of terahertz short pulses on the oxygen defect state in TiO$_{2-x}$. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12606

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