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Register a new userElectronic coherence and coherent dephasing in the optical control of electrons in graphene
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Electronic coherence is of utmost importance for the access and control of quantum-mechanical solid-state properties. Using a purely electronic observable, the photocurrent, we measure an electronic coherence time of 22 +/- 4 fs in graphene. The photocurrent is ideally suited to measure electronic coherence as it is a direct result of quantum path interference, controlled by the delay between two ultrashort two-color laser pulses. The maximum delay for which interference between the population amplitude injected by the first pulse interferes with that generated by the second pulse determines the electronic coherence time. In particular, numerical simulations reveal that the experimental data yield a lower boundary on the electronic coherence time and that coherent dephasing masks a lower coherence time. We expect that our results will significantly advance the understanding of coherent quantum-control in solid-state systems ranging from excitation with weak fields to strongly driven systems.
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We investigate coherent electron dynamics in graphene, interacting with the electric field waveform of two orthogonally polarized, few-cycle laser pulses. Recently, we demonstrated that linearly polarized driving pulses lead to sub-optical-cycle Landau-Zener quantum path interference by virtue of the combination of intraband motion and interband transition [Higuchi $textit{et al.}$, Nature $textbf{550}$, 224 (2017)]. Here we introduce a pulsed control laser beam, orthogonally polarized to the driving pulses, and observe the ensuing electron dynamics. The relative delay between the two pulses is a tuning parameter to control the electron trajectory, now in a complex fashion exploring the full two-dimensional reciprocal space in graphene. Depending on the relative phase, the electron trajectory in the reciprocal space can, for example, be deformed to suppress the quantum path interference resulting from the driving laser pulse. Intriguingly, this strong-field-based complex matter wave manipulation in a two-dimensional conductor is driven by a high repetition rate textit{laser oscillator}, rendering unnecessary complex and expensive amplified laser systems.
Intense efforts have been made in recent years to realize nonlinear optical interactions at the single-photon level. Much of this work has focused on achieving strong third-order nonlinearities, such as by using single atoms or other quantum emitters while the possibility of achieving strong second-order nonlinearities remains unexplored. Here, we describe a novel technique to realize such nonlinearities using graphene, exploiting the strong per-photon fields associated with tightly confined graphene plasmons in combination with spatially nonlocal nonlinear optical interactions. We show that in properly designed graphene nanostructures, these conditions enable extremely strong internal down-conversion between a single quantized plasmon and an entangled plasmon pair, or the reverse process of second harmonic generation. A separate issue is how such strong internal nonlinearities can be observed, given the nominally weak coupling between these plasmon resonances and free-space radiative fields. On one hand, by using the collective coupling to radiation of nanostructure arrays, we show that the internal nonlinearities can manifest themselves as efficient frequency conversion of radiative fields at extremely low input powers. On the other hand, the development of techniques to efficiently couple to single nanostructures would allow these nonlinear processes to occur at the level of single input photons.
The advancement of quantum optical science and technology with solid-state emitters such as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond critically relies on the coherence of the emitters optical transitions. A widely employed strategy to create NV centers at precisely controlled locations is nitrogen ion implantation followed by a high-temperature annealing process. We report on experimental data directly correlating the NV center optical coherence to the origin of the nitrogen atom. These studies reveal low-strain, narrow-optical-linewidth ($<500$ MHz) NV centers formed from naturally-occurring $^{14}$N atoms. In contrast, NV centers formed from implanted $^{15}$N atoms exhibit significantly broadened optical transitions ($>1$ GHz) and higher strain. The data show that the poor optical coherence of the NV centers formed from implanted nitrogen is not due to an intrinsic effect related to the diamond or isotope. These results have immediate implications for the positioning accuracy of current NV center creation protocols and point to the need to further investigate the influence of lattice damage on the coherence of NV centers from implanted ions.
Minimizing decoherence due to coupling of a quantum system to its fluctuating environment is at the forefront of quantum information science and photonics research. Nature sets the ultimate limit, however, given by the strength of the systems coupling to the electromagnetic field. Here, we establish the ability to electronically control this coupling and $textit{enhance}$ the coherence time of a quantum dot excitonic state. Coherence control is demonstrated on the positively charged exciton transition (an electron Coulomb-bound with two holes) in quantum dots embedded in a photonic waveguide by manipulating the electron and hole wavefunctions through an applied lateral electric field. With increasing field up to 15 kV cm$^{-1}$, the coherence time increases by a factor of two from $sim1.4$ ns to $sim2.7$ ns. Numerical calculations reveal that longer coherence arises from the separation of charge carriers by up to $sim6$ nm, which leads to a $30%$ weaker transition dipole moment. The ability to electrostatically control the coherence time and transition dipole moment opens new avenues for quantum communication and novel coupling schemes between distant qubits.
Determination of the path taken by a quantum particle leads to a suppression of interference and to a classical behavior. We employ here a quantum which path detector to perform accurate path determination in a two-path-electron-interferometer; leading to full suppression of the interference. Following the dephasing process we recover the interference by measuring the cross-correlation between the interferometer and detector currents. Under our measurement conditions every interfering electron is dephased by approximately a single electron in the detector - leading to mutual entanglement of approximately single pairs of electrons.
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