Photoexcitation

About: Photoexcitation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5874 publications have been published within this topic receiving 134733 citations.

The ultrafast dynamics and conductivity of photoexcited graphene at different Fermi energies

Abstract: For many of the envisioned optoelectronic applications of graphene, it is crucial to understand the subpicosecond carrier dynamics immediately following photoexcitation and the effect of photoexcitation on the electrical conductivity—the photoconductivity. Whereas these topics have been studied using various ultrafast experiments and theoretical approaches, controversial and incomplete explanations concerning the sign of the photoconductivity, the occurrence and significance of the creation of additional electron-hole pairs, and, in particular, how the relevant processes depend on Fermi energy have been put forward. We present a unified and intuitive physical picture of the ultrafast carrier dynamics and the photoconductivity, combining optical pump–terahertz probe measurements on a gate-tunable graphene device, with numerical calculations using the Boltzmann equation. We distinguish two types of ultrafast photo-induced carrier heating processes: At low (equilibrium) Fermi energy (EF ≲ 0.1 eV for our experiments), broadening of the carrier distribution involves interband transitions (interband heating). At higher Fermi energy (EF ≳ 0.15 eV), broadening of the carrier distribution involves intraband transitions (intraband heating). Under certain conditions, additional electron-hole pairs can be created [carrier multiplication (CM)] for low EF, and hot carriers (hot-CM) for higher EF. The resultant photoconductivity is positive (negative) for low (high) EF, which in our physical picture, is explained using solely electronic effects: It follows from the effect of the heated carrier distributions on the screening of impurities, consistent with the DC conductivity being mostly due to impurity scattering. The importance of these insights is highlighted by a discussion of the implications for graphene photodetector applications.

Ultrafast manipulation of antiferromagnetism of NiO

Abstract: Photoexcitation of antiferromagnetic NiO leads to ultrafast reorientation of Ni2+ spins due to change of the magnetic anisotropy. Recovery of the magnetic ground state occurs as coherent oscillation of the antiferromagnetic order parameter between hard- and easy-axis states manifesting itself as quantum beating. The coherence time is approximately 1 ns with the beating frequency being determined by the anisotropy energy.

Spatially tunable laser emission in dye-doped photonic liquid crystals

Abstract: A spatially tunable laser emission of the dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) cell using a one-dimensional temperature gradient is demonstrated. The photoexcitation of dye-doped CLC device using a frequency-doubled pulsed Nd: yttrium–aluminium–garnet laser gives rise to laser emission in the yellow-red spectral range. The lasing wavelength is widely tunable from 577 to 670 nm by shifting the position of the dye-doped CLC cell with respect to the pumping beam. The lowest excitation energy and maximum lasing efficiency occur at λ∼605nm which corresponds to the peak fluorescence emission of the dye.

Photoexcitation of a Volume Plasmon in C$_{60}$ Ions

Abstract: Neutral C60 is well known to exhibit a giant resonance in its photon absorption spectrum near 20 eV. This is associated with a surface plasmon, where delocalized electrons oscillate as a whole relative to the ionic cage. Absolute photoionization cross-section measurements for C+60, C2+60, and C3+60 ions in the 17-75 eV energy range show an additional resonance near 40 eV. Time-dependent density functional calculations confirm the collective nature of this feature, which is characterized as a dipole-excited volume plasmon made possible by the special fullerene geometry.