Ultrafast Quantum-path Interferometry Revealing the Generation Process of Coherent Phonons

Abstract

Optical dual-pulse pumping actively creates quantum-mechanical superposition of the electronic and phononic states in a bulk solid. We here made transient reflectivity measurements in an n-GaAs using a pair of relative-phase-locked femtosecond pulses and found characteristic interference fringes. This is a result of quantum-path interference peculiar to the dual-pulse excitation as indicated by theoretical calculation. Our observation reveals that the pathway of coherent phonon generation in the n-GaAs is impulsive stimulated Raman scattering at the displaced potential due to the surface-charge field, even though the photon energy lies in the opaque region.

6 + 4 pages, 5 + 3 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Influence of pulse width and detuning on coherent phonon generation
• Temperature-dependent chirped coherent phonon dynamics in Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ using high intensity femtosecond laser pulses
• Spectrally resolved detection in transient-reflectivity measurements of coherent optical phonons in diamond
• Polarization dependence of coherent phonon generation and detection in the 3D topological insulator Bi2Te3
• Delayed formation of coherent LO phonon-plasmon coupled modes in n-type and p-type GaAs measured using a femtosecond coherent control technique
• Quantum model for Impulsive Stimulated Raman Scattering
• Probing the fluctuations of the optical properties in time-resolved spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Coherent control of 40-THz optical phonons in diamond using femtosecond optical pulses
• Ultrafast all-optical manipulation of the charge-density-wave in VTe${}_2$