Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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PV: Plenarvorträge

PV XXI

PV XXI: Prize Talk

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 13:15–13:45, H15

Microscopic view on ultrafast carrier dynamics in graphene — •Ermin Malic — Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany — Laureate of the Walter-Schottky-Prize

The continuing trend to miniaturization of devices in modern technology faces fundamental physical limits of applied materials. The search for novel structures with new functionalities has brought graphene, an atomically thin two-dimensional material, into the focus of current research. Its unique electronic properties exhibiting linear and gapless bands result in novel relaxation channels for electrons. In my talk, I will present the highlights of our recent research on the carrier dynamics in optically excited graphene. Performing microscopic time- and energy-resolved calculations in close collaboration with leading experimental groups, we have obtained novel insights into fundamentally intriguing and technologically promising ultrafast phenomena in graphene [1]. To give two examples, we have predicted (i) extremely efficient Auger scattering giving rise to a significant carrier multiplication - a many-particle effect that is promising for the design of highly efficient graphene-based photodetectors and (ii) the appearance of a spectrally broad population inversion that can be exploited for the emission of coherent laser light even in the technologically challenging terahertz regime.

[1] Ermin Malic and Andreas Knorr, Graphene and Carbon Nanotubes: Ultrafast Relaxation Dynamics and Optics, Wiley-VCH (2013)