Université de Fribourg

Anomalous anisotropic exciton temperature dependence in rutile ${\mathrm{TiO}}_{2}$

Baldini, Edoardo ; Dominguez, Adriel ; Chiodo, Letizia ; Sheveleva, Evgeniia ; Yazdi-Rizi, Meghdad ; Bernhard, Christian ; Rubio, Angel ; Chergui, and Majed

In: Physical Review B, 2017, vol. 96, no. 4, p. 041204

Elucidating the details of electron-phonon coupling in semiconductors and insulators is a topic of pivotal interest, as it governs the transport mechanisms and is responsible for various phenomena such as spectral-weight transfers to phonon sidebands and self-trapping. Here, we investigate the influence of the electron-phonon interaction on the excitonic peaks of rutile TiO2, revealing a strong...

Université de Fribourg

Strongly bound excitons in anatase TiO₂ single crystals and nanoparticles

Baldini, Eduardo ; Chiodo, Letizia ; Dominguez, A. ; Palummo, M. ; Moser, S. ; Yazdi-Rizi, Meghdad ; Auböck, G. ; Mallett, Benjamin P. P. ; Berger, Helmuth ; Magrez, Arnaud ; Bernhard, Christian ; Grioni, M. ; Rubio, Angel ; Chergui, Majed

In: Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 13

Anatase TiO₂ is among the most studied materials for light-energy conversion applications, but the nature of its fundamental charge excitations is still unknown. Yet it is crucial to establish whether light absorption creates uncorrelated electron–hole pairs or bound excitons and, in the latter case, to determine their character. Here, by combining steady-state angle-resolved...