Absence of two-phonon quasi-elastic scattering in the normal state of doped--SrTiO$_3$ by THz pump-probe spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses nonlinear THz spectroscopy to investigate the scattering mechanisms in doped SrTiO$_3$, finding that two-phonon quasi-elastic scattering does not significantly contribute to resistive processes, suggesting electron-electron interactions dominate.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that soft two-phonon electron scattering is not a major factor in resistivity, highlighting the role of electron-electron interactions in doped SrTiO$_3$.

Findings

Large nonlinear THz response observed at low temperatures.

Energy relaxation rate increases with temperature.

Two-phonon quasi-elastic scattering is negligible.

Abstract

Multi-pulse nonlinear THz spectroscopies enable a new understanding of interacting metallic systems via their sensitivity to novel correlation functions. Here, we investigated the THz nonlinear properties of the dilute metallic phase of doped-SrTiO$_3$ thin films using nonlinear terahertz 2D coherent spectroscopy. We observed a large $\chi^{(3)}$ response in the low temperature region where the dc electrical resistivity follows a T$^2$-dependence. This is largely a pump-probe response, which we find is governed by a single energy relaxation rate that is much smaller at all temperatures than the momentum relaxation rates obtained from the optical conductivity. This indicates that the processes that dominate the resistive scattering are not the same as those that remove energy from the electronic system. Moreover the fact that the energy relaxation rate is an increasing function of temperature indicates that the excitations that do carry away energy from the electronic system cannot be considered as quasi-elastic and as such soft two-phonon electron scattering does not play a major role in the physics as proposed. This indicates that these materials' resistive T$^2$ scattering likely originates in electron-electron interactions despite the very small Fermi wave vectors at the lowest dopings.