Super-resolved time-frequency measurements of coupled phonon dynamics in a 2D quantum material.

Methods to probe and understand the dynamic response of materials following impulsive excitation are important for many fields, from materials and energy sciences to chemical and neuroscience. To design more efficient nano, energy, and quantum devices, new methods are needed to uncover the dominant excitations and reaction pathways. In this work, we implement a newly-developed superlet transform-a super-resolution time-frequency analytical method-to analyze and extract phonon dynamics in a laser-excited two-dimensional (2D) quantum material.

Optical nonlinearities of Au nanoparticles and Au/Ag coreshells.

Au nanoparticles exhibited both negative and positive nonlinear absorptions with ground-state plasmon bleaching and free-carrier absorption that could be origins of the saturable and reverse-saturable optical properties. Au/Ag coreshells displayed only positive nonlinear absorption and reverse-saturable optical properties as a function of excitation intensity at the edge of surface-plasmon resonance, which implies no ground-state plasmon bleaching and the existence of two-photon absorption.