In two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides, normal strain can modulate electronic band structures, yet leaving the optical selection rules intact. In contrast, a shear strain can perturb the spin-valley locked band structures and possibly induce mixing of the spin subbands which in turn can transfer oscillator strength between spin-allowed bright and spin-forbidden dark excitons. Here, we report a novel scheme to manipulate photoluminescence (PL) in a monolayer WSe2-MoSe2 lateral heterostructures, controlled by an external bending method in which strong out-of-plane shear strain (OSS) of up to 5.6% accompanies weak in-plane normal strain up to 0.72%. The spectra revealed a striking dependence on the bending direction that is stagnant in the negative (compressive) strain region and then rapidly changes with increasing positive (tensile) strain. The dependency of the PL signal under tensile bending was represented not only by the large energy shift ( > 40 meV) of the lowest excited states of both the WSe2 and MoSe2 monolayers, but also by the tendency to violate the optical selection rules that brightens (darkens) the excitons of the WSe2 (MoSe2) side. The analyses on the observed energy shifts and PL intensity changes confirm the different origins in compressive bending compared with tensile bending. The well-established band-anticrossing is identified to be affecting only the compressive deformation region. The spectral changes in the tensile region, on the other hand, originates mainly from the generation of an off-diagonal perturbation to a spin-specific Hamiltonian induced by OSS. The degree of spin-state mixing, which correlates precisely with the spin-flip coefficient of the theoretical model, is further represented by the OSS matrix elements, the spin splitting energy, and the shear deformation potential.

We report on new THz electromagnetic emission mechanism from deformational coupling of acoustic (AC) phonons with electrons in the propagation medium of non-polar Si. The epicenters of the AC phonon pulses are the surface and interface of a GaP transducer layer whose thickness (d) is varied in nanoscale from 16 to 45 nm. The propagating AC pulses locally modulate the bandgap, which in turn generates a train of electric field pulses, inducing an abrupt drift motion at the depletion edge of Si. The fairly time-delayed THz bursts, centered at different times ( t 1 T H z , t 2 T H z , and t 3 T H z ), are concurrently emitted only when a series of AC pulses reach the point of the depletion edge of Si, even without any piezoelectricity. The analysis on the observed peak emission amplitudes is consistent with calculations based on the combined effects of mobile charge carrier density and AC-phonon–induced local deformation, which recapitulates the role of deformational potential coupling in THz wave emission in a formulatively distinct manner from piezoelectric counterpart.

We demonstrate that the thermal boundary conductivity (TBC) between graphene and GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be manipulated through thermal annealing, which is verified by measuring the acoustic phonons after reflection at the interface. Thermal annealing affects the interfacial morphology as evaluated by both the Raman spectra and the spatial profile of the graphene wrinkles in atomic force microscopy. By tracing the phase of ultrafast acoustic oscillations on the basis of the pump-probe scheme, we extract the phonon reflection coefficient at the interface as a function of annealing temperatures up to 400 °C. Specifically, the phase shift of transient phononic oscillations at the graphene/LED interface conveys the photoelastic response during the phonon transfer process and can be used for extracting the interfacial coupling rate, which is strongly enhanced around ≈200°C. By incorporating the heat capacity and the interfacial coupling constants into TBC, along with analytical modeling based on the phonon reflection coefficients, we show that the TBC increases with the minimized surface roughness of graphene side at 200 °C. This new comprehensive TBC extraction scheme could spark further discussion on improving the heat dissipation of LEDs.

Thermal metamaterials have emerged as one of the latest research topics in applied science due to breakthrough advantages in modifying conductive heat flux. An acoustic Bragg reflector (ABR), composed of alternating arrays of two materials with contrasting acoustic impedances, is anticipated to coherently manipulate the transport properties of thermally important phonon branches by attaining interface roughness close to the monoatomic scale. However, there is a lack of research on how a narrow portion of the phononic band of a particular ABR can be extended to cover the entire thermal spectrum. Here, we report a modeling study of thermal transport using ABR, representatively based on GaAs/AlAs, GaN/AlN, or HfO2/SiO2 superlattices. Our calculations show that the anisotropy of thermal conductivity in HfO2/SiO2 can be significantly improved by tandemizing four different ABR layers, thus approaching the theoretically anticipated values based on monolayered materials. This work demonstrates how the tandem ABR can expand forbidden phononic bands beyond that occupied by a single ABR and proposes a practical strategy for realizing spectrally functionalized thermal properties from compound semiconductor materials that can be directly integrated into the existing device fabrication processes.