Coherent Acoustic Phonon and Its Chirping in Dirac Semimetal Cd_3As_2

Ultrafast optical spectroscopy of a single crystal of a Dirac semimetal Cd_3As_2 is carried out. An acoustic phonon (AP) mode with central frequency f=0.037 THz (i.e., 1.23 cm^-1 or 0.153 meV) is unambiguously generated and detected, which we attribute to laser-induced thermal strain. An AP chirping (i.e., variation of the phonon frequency) is clearly detected, which is ascribed to heat capacity variation with time. By comparing our experimental results and the theoretical model, we obtain a chirping time constant, which is 31.2 ps at 6 K and 19.8 ps at 300 K, respectively. Significantly, we identify an asymmetry in the AP frequency domain peak and find that it is caused by the chirping, instead of a Fano resonance. Moreover, we experimentally demonstrate that the central frequency of AP is extremely stable with varying laser fluence, as well as temperature, which endows Cd_3As_2 application potentials in thermoelectric devices.