Transient optical gain in strong-field-excited solids

Acoustic response of a laser-excited polycrystalline Au-film studied by ultrafast Debye-Scherrer diffraction at a table-top short-pulse X-ray source

The transient acoustic response of a free-standing, polycrystalline thin Au film upon femtosecond optical excitation has been studied by time-resolved Debye-Scherrer X-ray diffraction using ultrashort Cu K$_α$ X-ray pulses from a laser-driven plasma X-ray source. The temporal strain evolution has been determined from the transient shifts of multiple Bragg diffraction peaks. The experimental data are in good agreement with the results of calculations based on the two-temperature model and an acoustic model assuming uni-axial strain propagation in the laser-excited thin film.

Strongly bound excitons dominate electronic relaxation in resonantly excited twisted bilayer graphene

When two sheets of graphene stack in a twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) configuration, the resulting constrained overlap between interplanar 2p orbitals produce angle-tunable electronic absorption resonances. Using a novel combination of multiphoton transient absorption (TA) microscopy and TEM, we resolve the resonant electronic structure, and ensuing electronic relaxation inside single tBLG domains. Strikingly, we find that the transient electronic population in resonantly excited tBLG domains is enhanced many fold, forming a major electronic relaxation bottleneck. 2-photon TA microscopy shows…

Transient response of photoexcited electrons: negative and oscillating current

Time-dependent current of the electrons excited in the conduction band after ultrafast interband photogeneration is studied theoretically. The transient photocurrent is calculated for the nonlinear regime of response to a stationary electric field. The response demonstrates transient absolute negative conductivity when the electrons are excited slightly below the optical phonon energy, while the periodic oscillations of the electric current appear after formation of the streaming distribution. The quenching of these peculiarities by the elastic scattering of electrons is also considered.

Spin accumulation and dissipation excited by an ultrafast laser pulse

An ultrafast spin current can be induced by femtosecond laser excitation in a ferromagnetic (FM) thin film in contact with a nonmagnetic (NM) metal. The propagation of an ultrafast spin current into NM metal has recently been found in experiments to generate transient spin accumulation. Unlike spin accumulation in equilibrium NM metals that occurs due to spin transport at the Fermi energy, transient spin accumulation involves highly nonequilibrium hot electrons well above the Fermi level. To date, the diffusion and dissipation of this transient spin accumulation has not been well studied. Usin…

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics and continuum modelling of transient freezing of atomistic solids

In this work we investigate the transient solidification of a Lennard-Jones liquid using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations and continuum heat transfer theory. The simulations are performed in slab-shaped boxes, where a cold thermostat placed at the centre of the box drives the solidification of the liquid. Two well-defined solid fronts propagate outwards from the centre towards the ends of the box until solidification is completed. A continuum phase change model that accounts for the difference between the solid and the liquid densities is formulated to describe the evolution of t…

Excited state band mapping and momentum-resolved ultrafast population dynamics in In/Si(111) nanowires investigated with XUV based time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

We investigate the excited state electronic structure of the model phase transition system In/Si(111) using femtosecond time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (trARPES) with an XUV laser source at 500 kHz . Excited state band mapping is used to characterize the normally unoccupied electronic structure above the Fermi level in both structural phases of indium nanowires on Si(111): the metallic (4x1) and the gapped (8x2) phases. The extracted band positions are compared with the band structure calculated using density functional theory (DFT) within both the LDA and GW approximations…

Ultrafast supercontinuum spectroscopy of carrier multiplication and biexcitonic effects in excited states of PbS quantum dots

We examine the multiple exciton population dynamics in PbS quantum dots by ultrafast spectrally-resolved supercontinuum transient absorption (SC-TA). We simultaneously probe the first three excitonic transitions over a broad spectral range. Transient spectra show the presence of first order bleach of absorption for the 1S_h-1S_e transition and second order bleach along with photoinduced absorption band for 1P_h-1P_e transition. We also report evidence of the one-photon forbidden 1S_{h,e}-1P_{h,e} transition. We examine signatures of carrier multiplication (multiexcitons for the single absorbed…

Dissipative entanglement of solid-state spins in diamond

Generating robust entanglement among solid-state spins is key for applications in quantum information processing and precision sensing. We show here a dissipative approach to generate such entanglement among the hyperfine coupled electron nuclear spins using the rapid optical decay of electronic excited states. The combined dark state interference effects of the optical and microwave driving fields in the presence of spontaneous emission from the short-lived excited state leads to a dissipative formation of an entangled steady state. We show that the dissipative entanglement is generated for a…

Gate errors in solid state quantum computation

We review our work on the interplay between non-resonant gates and solid state environment in various solid state quantum computer architectures and the resulting gate errors. Particular, we show that adiabatic condition can be satisfied in small quantum dots, while higher energy excited states can play important role in the evolution of a Cooper-pair-box based quantum computer model. We also show that complicated bandstructure such as that of Si can pose a severe gate control problem.

利用飞秒极紫外脉冲在DyCo$_5$薄膜上开展瞬态光栅光谱研究

Transient grating spectroscopy on a DyCo$_5$ thin film with femtosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses

本研究利用飞秒极紫外瞬态光栅在室温DyCo₅薄膜中激发波长44nm的表面声波，实现了百皮秒内的追踪，同时指出了磁电信号探测的难点及软X射线探测的潜在解决方向。

Optimizing photon indistinguishability in the emission from incoherently-excited semiconductor quantum dots

Most optical quantum devices require deterministic single-photon emitters. Schemes so far demonstrated in the solid state imply an energy relaxation which tends to spoil the coherent nature of the time evolution, and with it the photon indistinguishability. We focus our theoretical investigation on semiconductor quantum dots embedded in microcavities. Simple and general relations are identified between the photon indistinguishability and the collection efficiency. The identification of the key parameters and of their interplay provides clear indications for the device optimization.

Spectrally resolved detection in transient-reflectivity measurements of coherent optical phonons in diamond

Coherent optical phonons in bulk solid system play a crucial role in understanding and designing light-matter interactions and can be detected by the transient-reflectivity measurement. In this paper, we demonstrate spectrally resolved detection of coherent optical phonons in diamond from ultrashort infrared pump-probe measurements using optical band-pass filters. We show that this enhances the sensitivity approximately 35 times in measuring the coherent oscillations in the transient reflectivity compared with the commonly used spectrally integrated measurement. To explain this observation, we…

Light-field control of real and virtual charge carriers

Light-driven electronic excitation is a cornerstone for energy and information transfer. In the interaction of intense and ultrafast light fields with solids, electrons may be excited irreversibly, or transiently during illumination only. As the transient electron population cannot be observed after the light pulse is gone it is referred to as virtual, while the population remaining excited is called real. Virtual charge carriers have recently been associated with high-harmonic generation and transient absorption, while photocurrent generation may stem from real as well as virtual charge carri…