Detection of the anomalous velocity with sub-picosecond time resolution in semiconductor nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates sub-picosecond time-resolved detection of anomalous velocity in semiconductor nanostructures, distinguishing intrinsic and extrinsic contributions and enabling ultrafast investigation of Hall effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optical and terahertz technique for ultrafast, local probing of anomalous velocity in quantum wells, advancing understanding of Berry curvature and scattering effects.

Findings

Successfully distinguished intrinsic and extrinsic anomalous velocity contributions.

Achieved sub-picosecond temporal resolution in detecting emitted radiation.

Observed local energy space dependence of the anomalous velocity.

Abstract

We report on the time-resolved detection of the anomalous velocity, constituting charge carriers moving perpendicular to an electric driving field, in undoped GaAs quantum wells. For this we optically excite the quantum wells with circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses, thereby creating a state which breaks time-inversion symmetry. We then employ a quasi single cycle terahertz pulse as electric driving field to induce the anomalous velocity. The electromagnetic radiation emitted from the anomalous velocity is studied with a sub-picosecond time resolution and reveals intriguing results. We are able to distinguish between intrinsic (linked to the Berry curvature) and extrinsic (linked to scattering) contributions to the anomalous velocity both originating from the valence band and observe local energy space dependence of the anomalous velocity. Our results thus constitute a significant step towards non-invasive probing of the anomalous velocity locally in the full energy/momentum space and enable the investigation of many popular physical effects such as anomalous Hall effect and spin Hall effect on ultrafast time scales.