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Chin. Phys. B, 2026, Vol. 35(3): 037802    DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/ae3122
RAPID COMMUNICATION Prev  

Phonon bottleneck effect due to finite shrinking gap revealed by high-pressure ultrafast dynamics

Yanling Wu(吴艳玲)1,†, Q. Wu(吴穹)2,3,†, X. Yin(尹霞)4, Y. X. Huang(黄逸轩)2,3, Takeshi Nakagawa4, Z. Y. Tian(田珍耘)2, Fei Sun(孙飞)2,3,5, Q. M. Zhang(张清明)2,3, Jun Chang(昌峻)6,‡, Ho-kwang Mao(毛河光)4, Yang Ding(丁阳)4,§, and Jimin Zhao(赵继民)2,3,7,¶
1 State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology & Hebei Key Laboratory of Microstructural Material Physics, School of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China;
2 Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China;
3 School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
4 Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research, Beijing 100094, China;
5 Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden 01187, Germany;
6 College of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China;
7 Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China
Abstract  High-pressure ultrafast dynamics has been recently developed, enabling the exploration of non-equilibrium properties of various quantum materials under high pressure. Particularly, by investigating the pressure dependence of time-resolved ultrafast dynamics, we have discovered a pressure-induced phonon bottleneck effect (PBE). To date, all reported PBEs are due to fully closed gaps, which was reflected in the simultaneous characteristic changes in both amplitude and lifetime of the phonon-phonon scattering slow relaxation component. However, as reflected through its connection to Euler disk, incompletely closed gaps can also induce PBEs. In this work, we report the first PBE due to a finite shrinking gap. As is known, it is challenging to directly observe high-pressure-induced variations in electronic band gaps due to the diamond anvil cell. Here, by investigating Sr$_{{2}}$IrO$_{{4}}$ in our previous work, we obtain an empirical formula for the pressure-induced energy gap variation at room temperature. Our quantitative analysis shows that the gap is finite shrinking rather than fully closed.
Keywords:  phonon bottleneck effect      ultrafast dynamics      high pressure      ultrafast spectroscopy      finite gap  
Received:  11 November 2025      Revised:  17 December 2025      Accepted manuscript online:  25 December 2025
PACS:  78.47.J- (Ultrafast spectroscopy (<1 psec))  
  62.50.-p (High-pressure effects in solids and liquids)  
  71.38.-k (Polarons and electron-phonon interactions)  
  78.47.-p (Spectroscopy of solid state dynamics)  
  87.15.ht (Ultrafast dynamics; charge transfer)  
Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12204400 and 12534006), Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics (Grant No. 2024BNLCMPKF020), Innovation Capability Improvement Project of Hebei Province (Grant No. 22567605H), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2024YFA1408700 and 2021YFA1400201), and CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (Grant No. YSBR-059).
Corresponding Authors:  Jun Chang, Yang Ding, Jimin Zhao     E-mail:  junchang@snnu.edu.cn;yang.ding@hpstar.ac.cn;jmzhao@iphy.ac.cn

Cite this article: 

Yanling Wu(吴艳玲), Q. Wu(吴穹), X. Yin(尹霞), Y. X. Huang(黄逸轩), Takeshi Nakagawa, Z. Y. Tian(田珍耘), Fei Sun(孙飞), Q. M. Zhang(张清明), Jun Chang(昌峻), Ho-kwang Mao(毛河光), Yang Ding(丁阳), and Jimin Zhao(赵继民) Phonon bottleneck effect due to finite shrinking gap revealed by high-pressure ultrafast dynamics 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 037802

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