Terahertz Polaron Oscillations of Electrons Solvated in Liquid Water

Abstract

The terahertz (THz) response of solvated electrons in liquid water is studied in nonlinear ultrafast pump-probe experiments. Free electrons with concentrations from c_e = 4 to 140 \times 10-6 moles/liter are generated by high-field THz or near-infrared multiphoton excitation. The time-resolved change of the dielectric function as mapped by broadband THz pulses exhibits pronounced oscillations persisting up to 30 ps. Their frequency increases with electron concentration from 0.2 to 1.5 THz. The oscillatory response is assigned to impulsively excited coherent polarons involving coupled electron and water shell motions with a frequency set by the local electric field.

5 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Field-Induced Tunneling Ionization and Terahertz-Driven Electron Dynamics in Liquid Water
• Collisional damping rates for plasma waves

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Field-Induced Electron Generation in Water: Solvation Dynamics and Many-Body Interactions
• Temperature-independent non-linear terahertz transmission by liquid water
• Solvated electrons in polar liquids as epsilon-near-zero materials tunable in the terahertz frequency range
• Tuning the terahertz response of liquids by creating polar many-body excitations