Anisotropic electron phonon coupling in colloidal layered TiS₂ nanodiscs observed via coherent acoustic phonons

Atomically thin layered transition metal dichalcogenides with highly anisotropic structure exhibit strong anisotropy in various material properties. Here, we report the anisotropic coupling between the interband optical transition and coherent acoustic phonon excited by ultrashort optical excitation in a colloidal solution of multilayered TiS₂ nanodiscs. The transient absorption signal from the diameter and thickness controlled TiS₂ nanodiscs dispersed in solution exhibited an oscillatory feature, which is attributed to the modulation of the interband absorption peak by the intralayer breathing mode. However, the signature of the interlayer acoustic phonon was not observed, while it has been previously observed in noncolloidal exfoliated sheets of MoS₂. The dominance of the intralayer mode in modulating the interband optical transition was supported by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the optical absorption spectra of TiS₂, which showed the stronger sensitivity of the interband absorption peak in the visible region to the in plane strain than to the out of plane strain.