Ultrafast Control of Strong-Field Electron Dynamics in Solids

Abstract

We review theoretical foundations and some recent progress related to the quest of controlling the motion of charge carriers with intense laser pulses and optical waveforms. The tools and techniques of attosecond science enable detailed investigations of a relatively unexplored regime of nondestructive strong-field effects. Such extremely nonlinear effects may be utilized to steer electron motion with precisely controlled optical fields and switch electric currents at a rate that is far beyond the capabilities of conventional electronics. IntroductionIt has long been realized that intense few-cycle laser pulses provide unique conditions for exploring extremely nonlinear phenomena in solids [1,2], the key idea being that a sample can withstand a stronger electric field if the duration of the interaction is shortened. Ultimately, a single-cycle laser pulse provides the best conditions for studying nonperturbative strong-field effects, especially those where the properties of a sample change within a fraction of a laser cycle. The recent rapid development of the tools and techniques of attosecond science [3] not only creates new opportunities for detailed investigations of ultrafast electron dynamics in solids, but it also opens exciting opportunities for controlling electron motion in solids with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Conventional nonlinear phenomena that accompany the interaction of intense laser pulses with solids have already found a vast number of applications in spectroscopy, imaging, laser technology, transmitting and processing information [4]. It can be expected that the less conventional nonpertur-

Colloquium : Strong-field phenomena in periodic systems

“…The physical mechanism leading to the light-waveform controlled current has been a matter of debate. The proposed interpretations engage the dynamic formation of Wannier-Stark states in the adiabatic tunneling limit (Kwon et al, 2016;Schiffrin et al, 2013), the interference of excitation channels in the multiphoton and tunneling regimes Paasch-Colberg et al, 2016), the field-driven intraband motion of charge carriers after their excitation (Földi et al, 2013;Yakovlev et al, 2016), and the dynamics of virtual electron-hole pairs (Khurgin, 2016;Krausz and Stockman, 2014;Yablonovitch et al, 1989). Models based on these concepts differ in the assumptions and representations that they use, so the physical insights that they give are particularly relevant in different regimes and limiting cases.…”

Quantum electron motion control in dielectric

“…Advancements in attosecond pulse generation and spectroscopic measurements by high harmonic generation in gases and solids opened a new window to study the electronic response driven by strong fields in real-time [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . The strong-field-induced electron dynamics and the related phase transition to a semimetal-like state of dielectric systems have been studied theoretically [12][13][14][15] and experimentally by XUV attosecond spectroscopy [16][17][18][19] . Accordingly, the strong-field interaction induces a current in the dielectric nanocircuit as…”

“…Based on these studies, the strong-field-induced electron dynamics in the dielectric can be explained by electron motion in the conduction band (illustration in Figure 1a&b). In a strong field (Figure 1a), the electron with initial wave vector ( ) is moving in the reciprocal space by acquiring a time-dependent wave vector $ ( , ) from the driving field, which can be expressed by 12,16 K ) (q, t) = q + . ℏ ∫ F 2 (z, t 4 )dt 4 6 78 (1) where : ( , 4 ) is the optical field strength, and is the electron charge.…”

Ensemble properties of charge carriers injected by an ultrashort laser pulse

“…In the vicinity of such crystal momenta, even a weak infrared pulse can drive interband transitions with a significant probability 46 . Figure 8 demonstrates that even though the dynamics of a particular charge carrier in the field of a weak probe pulse may violate our assumptions, the dynamics of the entire electron-hole plasma are well described by the intraband approximation, especially when charge carriers occupy a large part of the Brillouin zone.…”