Characterisation of optical phonons within epitaxial Ge2Sb2Te5/InAs (111) structures

Femto-second pump-probe and micro-Raman spectroscopy (RS) measurements have been made to identify op-tical phonons in Ge2Sb2Te5/InAs(111) and an InAs(111) substrate. A theory of transient stimulated Raman scattering (TSRS) incorporating the Raman tensor predicts which phonon modes may be observed in transient reflectance (R) and anisotropic reflectance (AR) pump-probe measurements, and how their amplitudes depend upon angles phi and theta that describe the orientation of the pump and probe beam electric fields within the sample plane. AR measurements of an InAs(111) substrate revealed the 6.5 THz T2 transverse optical phonon with amplitude proportional to sin(2(theta-phi)), as expected for both TSRS and the specular optical Kerr effect (SOKE), confirming that TSRS and SOKE are equivalent descriptions of the same phenomenon. The AR responses of Ge2Sb2Te5/InAs(111) revealed a single coherent optical phonon (COP) mode at about 3.4 THz with sin(2(theta-phi)) amplitude variation that confirms the T-2-like character of the mode and hence the underlying cubic structure of the epilayer. This mode was also observed in the R measurement for one sample, with amplitude independent of phi and theta as predicted by TSRS theory. Both R and AR signals were heavily damped, which is attributed to dephasing of T-2x, T-2y and T-2z modes that become non-degenerate due to structural distortions. RS measurements revealed three modes for Ge2Sb2Te5/InAs(111) and three modes for InAs(111). Taken together the TSRS and RS measurements provide rich information about optical phonons in the phase change material Ge2Sb2Te5 and the InAs(111) surface.

Automated summary

Femto-second pump-probe and micro-Raman spectroscopy measurements were used to identify optical phonons in Ge2Sb2Te5/InAs(111) and an InAs(111) substrate. The theory of transient stimulated Raman scattering predicted the phonon modes observed in the measurements, and their amplitudes were found to be dependent on the angles describing the orientation of the pump and probe beams. The measurements provided rich information about the optical phonons in the materials studied.