Formation of Plasmonic Polarons in Highly Electron-Doped Anatase TiO₂

The existence of various quasiparticles of polarons because of electron-boson couplings plays important roles in determining electron transport in titanium dioxide (TiO₂), which affects a wealth of physical properties from catalysis to interfacial superconductivity. In addition to the well-defined Fröhlich polarons whose electrons are dressed by the phonon clouds, it has been theoretically predicted that electrons can also couple to their own plasmonic oscillations, namely, the plasmonic polarons. Here we experimentally demonstrate the formation of plasmonic polarons in highly doped anatase TiO₂ using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Our results show that the energy separation of plasmon-loss satellites follows a dependence on √n, where n is the electron density, manifesting the characteristic of plasmonic polarons. The spectral functions enable to quantitatively evaluate the strengths of electron-plasmon and electron-phonon couplings, respectively, providing an effective approach for characterizing the interplays among different bosonic modes in the complicate many-body interactions.