Ultrafast Electron Tunneling Devices—From Electric‐Field Driven to Optical‐Field Driven

Abstract

The search for ever higher frequency information processing has become an area of intense research activity within the micro, nano, and optoelectronics communities. Compared to conventional semiconductor‐based diffusive transport electron devices, electron tunneling devices provide significantly faster response times due to near‐instantaneous tunneling that occurs at sub‐femtosecond timescales. As a result, the enhanced performance of electron tunneling devices is demonstrated, time and again, to reimagine a wide variety of traditional electronic devices with a variety of new “lightwave electronics” emerging, each capable of reducing the electron transport channel transit time down to attosecond timescales. In response to unprecedented rapid progress within this field, here the current state‐of‐the‐art in electron tunneling devices is reviewed, current challenges and opportunities are highlighted, and possible future research directions are identified.

Laser-Controlled Charge Transfer in a Two-Dimensional Organic/Inorganic Optical Coherent Nanojunction

“…Corresponding graphs referred to the gray dots in Figure 4a are reported in the SI, Figure S3. The relation between the excitation energy and the laser intensity suggests linear response for I = 2 × 10 11 W/cm 2 , where ΔE ex (t = 30 fs) = 0.18 eV/atom, and for I = 10 12 W/ cm 2 , where this value increases up to 0.77 eV/atom (see Figure 4a). A deviation from linearity is seen starting from I = 2 × 10 12 W/cm 2 : in this case, the transferred energy in 30 fs increases only to 1.15 eV/atom.…”

“…The possibility to control the electronic structure of materials via electronic coherence has become a realistic perspective in the past few years. , Hybrid inorganic/organic interfaces, combining the superior light-harvesting abilities of carbon-conjugated molecules with the efficient carrier mobility of inorganic semiconductors, including transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers, are suitable platforms to host these effects and hence to be employed as functional blocks for this kind of application. − Recent experiments have demonstrated that, by exciting TMDC-based hybrid interfaces with a laser pulse, it is possible to induce electron or hole transfer depending on the level alignment between the components. , In such complex heterostructures, this finding unveils intriguing opportunities to generate laser-induced photocurrents exploiting electronic coherence. By tuning the laser frequency, one could selectively excite a specific electronic transition and resonantly inject charge carriers to the conduction band.…”

High Responsivity Vacuum Nano-Photodiode Using Single-Crystal CsPbBr3 Micro-Sheet

“…The PFE process harvests photo-induced “hot” electrons for considerably enhanced electron emission. In comparison to the optical field electron emission (OFE), which is another type of laser-assisted process utilizing a high-power (~100 GWcm −2 ) femtosecond laser [ 8 , 9 , 10 ], the PFE process takes the advantage of moderate photo-excitation and high photoelectric conversion efficiency [ 11 ]. As a result, the demonstration of the PFE process in novel device structures can lead to high-performance vacuum photodiodes, which are promising for ultrafast photo detection, sensing, and information processing [ 2 , 12 ].…”

Universal Model of Optical-Field Electron Tunneling from Two-Dimensional Materials

“…Our findings offer a theoretical foundation for the understanding of optical-field tunneling emission from the 2D material system, which is useful for the development of 2D-material based optoelectronics and vacuum nanoelectronics Introduction.-Laser-matter interaction offers the capability for the manipulation of electron excitation and dynamics at ultrashort timescale, such as high-order harmonic generation [1,2], carrier interband transition [3], spontaneous radiation [4], photoelectron emission [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], quantum coherent control of excitation states [13][14][15][16] and many others. Among them, laser-triggered photoemission from solids has gained considerable current attention, because of its crucial role in the development of high-resolution electron microscopy and diffraction [17,18], free electron lasers [19], tabletop laser accelerators [20], coherent electron sources [21,22] and quantum nano-vacuum electronics [23][24][25][26].…”