Hidden Phonon Highways Promote Photoinduced Interlayer Energy Transfer in Twisted Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Heterostructures

Vertically stacked van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures exhibit unique electronic, optical, and thermal properties that can be manipulated by twist-angle engineering. However, the weak phononic coupling at a bilayer interface imposes a fundamental thermal bottleneck for future two-dimensional devices. Using ultrafast electron diffraction, we directly investigated photoinduced nonequilibrium phonon dynamics in MoS₂/WS₂ at 4° twist angle and WSe₂/MoSe₂ heterobilayers with twist angles of 7°, 16°, and 25°. We identified an interlayer heat transfer channel with a characteristic timescale of ~20 picoseconds, about one order of magnitude faster than molecular dynamics simulations assuming initial intralayer thermalization. Atomistic calculations involving phonon-phonon scattering suggest that this process originates from the nonthermal phonon population following the initial interlayer charge transfer and scattering. Our findings present an avenue for thermal management in vdW heterostructures by tailoring nonequilibrium phonon populations.¹

1. Johnson, A. C., Georgaras, J.D., et al. Hidden phonon highways promote photoinduced interlayer energy transfer in twisted transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures. Science Advances 10, eadj8819 (2024).