Isolated polyhedra constituting the framework of Cs2SnI6 renders surplus degrees of dynamic freedom
making
it an abode of inherent anharmonicity. The ensuing properties of the
integrated devices are, thus, inevitably governed by the underlying
lattice vibrational dynamics. Here, with the aid of femtosecond transient
absorption (TA) spectroscopy, we have made an attempt to capture a
real-time picture of the vibrational modes prevalent in the Cs2SnI6 system and allocate the origin of the, thus
far, unidentified modes. Further, we have also inspected the generation
mechanism of the fully symmetric coherent phonon mode “A1g” which is manifested as strong oscillations in the
time domain data for Cs2SnI6 and also the other
low symmetry modes observable in the frequency domain in the unified
framework of displacive excitation and impulsive scattering. As another
major accomplishment, we pinpointed the position of the theoretically
predicted yet never experimentally observed silent modes which usually
are left undetected in the conventional frequency domain spectroscopic
techniques. Strong support has been lent from the phase analysis of
the excitation pump and intensity-dependent TA measurements. Subsequent
to accounting for all the modes, the anharmonicity of the phonon modes,
a straightforward consequence of phonon–phonon coupling, has
been addressed. Furthermore, we executed temperature-dependent investigations
which together with the pump-dependent studies provide insights into
the extent of carrier-phonon coupling. All this critical information
regarding the phonon modes can lend assistance in improving the performance
of the devices based on Cs2SnI6.