Direction-dependent charge transport and optical responses are characteristic of van der Waals (vdW) materials with strong in-plane anisotropy. While transition-metal trichalcogenides (TMTCs) exemplify this behavior, heavier analogs remain largely unexplored. In this study we examine USe3 as an anisotropic vdW material and a heavier analog of the well-studied TMTCs. We reveal strong in-plane anisotropy using polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy, investigate strain-induced shifts of phonon modes, and quantify direction-dependent charge-carrier mobility through transport measurements on field-effect devices. First-principles calculations based on density-functional theory corroborate our findings, providing a theoretical basis for our experimental observations. Casting USe3 as an actinide analog of a TMTC establishes a platform for exploring low-dimensional semiconductors that combine strong in-plane anisotropy with f-electron physics.
@article{arxiv.2512.04029,
title = {Anisotropic Phonon Dynamics and Directional Transport in Actinide van der Waals Semiconductor USe$_3$},
author = {Aljoscha Söll and Valentino Jadrisko and Sourav Dey and Nassima Benchtaber and Kalyan Sarkar and Borna Radatovic and Jan Luxa and Fedor Lipilin and Kseniia Mosina and Vojtech Kundrat and Jakub Zalesak and Jana Vejpravova and Martin Zacek and Christoph Gadermaier and José J. Baldoví and Zdeněk Sofer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.04029},
year = {2025}
}