High-field terahertz response of graphene

M J Paul¹, Y C Chang², Z J Thompson¹, A Stickel¹, J Wardini¹, H Choi³, E D Minot¹, T B Norris^2,4 and Yun-Shik Lee¹

tnorris@umich.edu                            
¹ Department of Physics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
² Center for Ultrafast Optical Science and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
³ School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Kore
a

http://m.iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/15/8/085019
We investigate the response of multi-layer epitaxial graphene and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown single-layer graphene to strong terahertz (THz) fields. Contrary to theoretical predictions of strong nonlinear response, the transmitted fields exhibit no harmonic generation, indicating that the nonlinear response is limited by fast electron thermalization due to carrier–carrier scattering. The fast electron heating gives rise to large THz transmission enhancement (> 15%) in single-layer CVD graphene at high THz fields (E_THz > 10 kV cm⁻¹). The nonlinear effects exhibit non-Drude behavior in the THz conductivity, where THz fields induce extreme non-equilibrium electron distributions