Plasmon Excitations across the Charge-Density-Wave Transition in Single-Layer TiSe2.

Abstract

1T-TiSe2 is believed to possess a soft electronic mode, i.e., plasmon or exciton, that might be responsible for the exciton condensation and charge-density-wave (CDW) transition. Here, we explore collective electronic excitations in single-layer 1T-TiSe2 by using the ab initio electromagnetic linear response and unveil intricate scattering pathways of the two-dimensional (2D) plasmon mode near the CDW phase. We found the dominant role of plasmon-phonon scattering, which in combination with the CDW gap excitations leads to the anomalous temperature dependence of the plasmon line width across the CDW transition. Below the transition temperature TCDW a strong hybridization between the 2D plasmon and CDW excitations is obtained. These optical features are highly tunable due to temperature-dependent CDW-related modifications of electronic structure and electron-phonon coupling and make CDW-bearing systems potentially interesting for applications in optoelectronics and low-loss plasmonics.