I will describe two recent efforts focused on probing lithium-intercalation-driven metastable phases in the 2D transition metal dichalcogenide WTe2 as measured by in-situ x-ray and electron scattering. In the first find a new metastable phase featuring an anomalously large in-plane chemical expansion coefficient (expansion per unit lithium inserted). It is common for 2D materials to expand in the out-of-plane direction upon intercalation, but large tunable uniaxial in-plane expansion is much more rare. The unusual actuation of LixWTe2 is linked to the formation of a metastable crystallographic phase, potentially enabling novel means for strain modulation at high frequencies [1]. In the second part of the talk I will describe new ways of probing the ultrafast dynamical response of this metastable phase, using a new setup which allows for pump-probe studies within an electrochemical cell. We find that Li-intercalation dramatically modulates electron-phonon coupling strengths in the material.

In-operando ultrafast studies of Li-intercalation-induced dynamics in WTe2.

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ACS Fall 2022

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