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SYSD: Symposium SKM Dissertation Prize 2024

SYSD 1: SKM Dissertation Prize

SYSD 1.5: Invited Talk

Monday, March 18, 2024, 11:30–12:00, H 1012

Lightwave control of electrons in graphene — •Tobias Weitz — Department Physik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany

Ultrashort and intense laser pulses enable the control of electrons inside solids. In the realm of lightwave electronics, the induced electronic motion is harnessed to both encode and process information with a bandwidth up to petahertz frequencies, fundamentally set by the oscillation period of light. While control of these attosecond electron dynamics has advanced over the last decade, their implementation and use for information technology is a remaining problem. To bridge this gap, I utilize a 2D conductor, monolayer graphene, to provide ultrafast information processing using lightwaves.

In this talk, I report on the optical strong-field control of electrons in a gold-graphene-gold heterostructure to induce electric currents. Here I can distinguish and take advantage of two types of charge carriers by matching the temporal symmetry of an incident few-cycle laser waveform to spatial symmetries of electron motion in the graphene structure: Real carriers emerge from laser-driven electron interferometry in the unique cone-shaped band structure of graphene and carry a current after their excitation. Virtual carriers exist during illumination only and may be rectified at inherent functional gold-graphene interfaces within the duration of a single optical cycle. With the understanding of the underlying dynamics, I demonstrate a proof-of-concept of an ultrafast logic gate as a step to link photonics with electronics.

Keywords: Attosecond physics; Graphene; Current; Electron dynamics; Lightwave electronics