https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201920505002
Lightwave-controlled electron dynamics in graphene
Department of Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Staudtstrasse 1, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
* Corresponding author: Christian.Heide@fau.de
Published online: 16 April 2019
We demonstrate that currents induced in graphene by ultrashort laser pulses are sensitive to the exact shape of the electric-field waveform. By increasing the field strength, we found a transition of the light–matter interaction from the weak-field to the strong-field regime at around 2 V/nm, where intraband dynamics influence interband transitions. In this strong-field regime, the light-matter interaction can be described by the wavenumber trajectories of electrons in the reciprocal space. For linearly polarized light the electron dynamics are governed by repeated sub-optical-cycle Landau-Zener transitions between the valence- and conduction band, resulting in Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg interference, whereas for circular polarized light this interference is supressed.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
