Speaker
Description
Controlling carrier transport in optoelectronic materials is essential for advancing device performance and scalability. So far, permanent, local structural heterogeneity has been utilized to create static energy gradients that funnel carriers. Here, we demonstrate dynamic structure–carrier coupling in a tungsten disulfide membrane. In combination of ultrafast electron microscopy and optical microscopy, we directly film the evolution of photoinduced carriers alongside the acoustic wavefronts travelling on the two-dimensional semiconductor. Our results show that the fleeting wavefronts generate a mobile tensile-strain field that spatiotemporally reshapes the energy landscape. These results promise reconfigurable transient strain as a tool to control carrier flow in space and time and add another dimension to ultrafast switches and carrier routing.