Signatures of transient Wannier-Stark localization in bulk gallium arsenide

Many properties of solids result from the fact that in a periodic crystal structure, electronic wave functions are delocalized over many lattice sites. Electrons should become increasingly localized when a strong electric field is applied. So far, this Wannier–Stark regime has been reached only in a...

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Published in:Nature communications 2018-07, Vol.9 (1), p.2890-8, Article 2890
Main Authors: Schmidt, C., Bühler, J., Heinrich, A.-C., Allerbeck, J., Podzimski, R., Berghoff, D., Meier, T., Schmidt, W. G., Reichl, C., Wegscheider, W., Brida, D., Leitenstorfer, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
140/125
639/766/119/1000
639/766/119/995
639/766/400/561
Arsenides
Atomic structure
Bias
Blurring
Chemical reactions
Crystal lattices
Crystal structure
Electronic structure
Electrons
Gallium
Gallium arsenide
Humanities and Social Sciences
Infrared signatures
Lattice sites
Linearity
Localization
multidisciplinary
Organic chemistry
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Superlattices
Wave functions
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Summary:Many properties of solids result from the fact that in a periodic crystal structure, electronic wave functions are delocalized over many lattice sites. Electrons should become increasingly localized when a strong electric field is applied. So far, this Wannier–Stark regime has been reached only in artificial superlattices. Here we show that extremely transient bias over the few-femtosecond period of phase-stable mid-infrared pulses may localize electrons even in a bulk semiconductor like GaAs. The complicated band structure of a three-dimensional crystal leads to a strong blurring of field-dependent steps in the Wannier–Stark ladder. Only the central step emerges strongly in interband electro-absorption because its energetic position is dictated by the electronic structure at an atomic level and therefore insensitive to the external bias. In this way, we demonstrate an extreme state of matter with potential applications due to e.g., its giant optical non-linearity or extremely high chemical reactivity. In strong enough electric fields the non-linear response of electrons in crystals is expected to lead to spatial localization but so far this has only been seen in artificial structures. Schmidt et al. present evidence of this Wannier-Stark localization effect in bulk GaAs driven by intense mid-infrared pulses.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-05229-x