On the crest of the wave: Electronics on a time scale shorter than a cycle of light

An intense lightwave drives ultrafast electronic motion in a bulk crystal. A novel quantum interference creates free electrons and causes the emission of ultrashort high-harmonic light bursts. Credit: B. Baxley /parttowhole.com

 http://phys.org/news/2015-07-crest-electronics-scale-shorter.html#jCp

Physicists from Regensburg and Marburg, Germany have succeeded in taking a slow-motion movie of speeding electrons in a solid driven by a strong light wave. In the process, they have unraveled a novel quantum phenomenon, which is reported in the recent edition of Nature.

The advent of ever faster electronics featuring clock rates up to the multiple-gigahertz range has revolutionized our day-to-day life. Researchers and engineers all over the world have racked their brains about one central question: Is there a fundamental limit for the speed of electronics? Indeed, all electronic circuits rely on charge motion controlled by electric fields. Future high-speed electronics would, therefore, benefit immensely from bias fields that switch faster than state-of-the-art electronic clocks. The solution to this challenge may be surprisingly straightforward: One could try to employ the fastest alternating electric field available in nature – a light wave.

The team of researchers from Germany has now directly observed the electrons' motion in a semiconductor driven by a strong light pulse in the terahertz spectral region. The pioneering experiment carried out in Rupert Huber's group at the University of Regensburg enabled the first simultaneous clocking measurement of extremely broadband radiation sent out by the accelerated electrons, so-called high-order harmonics, and the driving light wave. It turns out that the harmonics are emitted in ultrashort light bursts which have now been characterized with a temporal resolution of approximately one femtosecond – the millionth of a billionth part of a second. In combination with numerical simulations performed in the groups of Mackillo Kira and Stephan W. Koch at the University of Marburg, this study provides unprecedented insights into the quantum world of a solid.

The results shed light onto a surprising behavior of the crystal electrons: During an extremely short timespan after excitation, the strong light field drives an electron simultaneously along multiple paths instead of one only. This strange scenario is possible in the quantum world where particles can behave like waves. As an indisputable quantum wave aspect, the electrons were shown to interfere constructively (destructively) only at the positive (negative) crests of the driving field, massively reshaping the temporal emission of the harmonics. While such quantum effects are often fragile and usually become observable only in extremely gentle fields the newly discovered phenomenon is qualitatively different because it is robust, producing pronounced interference contrast especially for extremely strong driving fields.

The breakthrough reveals the temporal structure of high-harmonics from a solid for the first time and thus helps the development of new sources of ever shorter light pulses. Moreover, this discovery opens new perspectives for modern high-speed electronics and sets an important milestone on the way towards light-wave-driven electronics.

 Explore further: Lightwave electronics at sharp metal tips

More information: M. Hohenleutner, F. Langer, O. Schubert, M. Knorr, U. Huttner, S. W. Koch, M.Kira und R. Huber, Real-time observation of interfering crystal electrons in high-harmonic generation, Nature (2015), DOI: 10.1038/nature14652

Novel microscope makes slow-motion movies of tiny nanostructures

Novel microscope makes slow-motion movies of tiny nanostructures 

http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=37620.php#ixzz3FIuFIJ7m 

(Nanowerk News) Modern nanotechnology does what nature has always been able to do: Systematic structuring on the nanometer length scale – the billionth part of a meter – to create artificial materials with novel properties. Important examples are semiconductor building blocks for high-speed electronics. To understand the behavior of these structures and to make them even faster, smaller, and more efficient, scientists would like to trace directly how electrons move on length scales of only a few atoms. These processes often occur extremely quickly, which has spurred a drive to develop a microscope that combines excellent spatial resolution with the highest possible temporal resolution.

Max Eisele, Tyler Cocker et collegues at the Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg have now developed a microscope that fulfills such requirements ("Ultrafast multi-terahertz nano-spectroscopy with sub-cycle temporal resolution").

Schematic representation of the new microscope imaging super-fast motions of electrons. (Illustration: Max Eisele)

The physicists achieve excellent spatial resolution by focusing light onto a tiny metal tip. The tip collects and confines the light to a volume only 10 nanometers wide in all three spatial dimensions – a volume that is a billion times smaller than in conventional optical microscopy. The tip is then raster scanned over a sample surface and the incident light that is scattered depends upon the local properties of the sample directly below the tip. The group illuminates the tip with infrared flashes of light only a few femtoseconds in duration. A femtosecond is the unbelievably short temporal duration of a billionth part of a millionth of a second. To detect the scattered light with the highest possible temporal resolution the physicists use incredibly fast sensors that can even observe the oscillations of infrared light.

Like in slow-motion movies, these light flashes allow the researchers to take snapshots of super-fast electronic nano-motion. In a spectacular demonstration experiment the scientists were able to record a 3D movie of electrons moving at the surface of a semiconductor nanowire, which was only accessible in an indirect way up until now.

Such nanostructures, which have been fabricated at the CNR - Istituto Nanoscienze in Pisa, are of great interest for future high-speed electronics. Besides answering technological questions in electronics and photovoltaics, the microscope will also be valuable for a wide range of interdisciplinary applications, which range from providing novel physical insights into exotic materials to understanding biological processes on the molecular scale.