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Thickness-tunable terahertz plasma oscillations in a semiconductor slab excited by femtosecond optical pulses

Y. D. Glinka, D. Maryenko, and J. H. Smet
Phys. Rev. B 78, 035328 – Published 24 July 2008

Abstract

We report on the observation of terahertz oscillations in an electron-hole plasma optically excited by a femtosecond pulse in the μm-sized slab of low-temperature-grown-GaAs (LT-GaAs) grown on the GaAs substrate. The frequency of oscillations is shown to be inversely proportional to the slab thickness. It is suggested that the LT-GaAs slab serves as a resonant cavity for traveling plasma waves, which have been generated as a consequence of the shock interaction of photoexcited electron plasma with the GaAs/LT-GaAs interface. The instantaneous diffusion of photoexcited plasma inward the material is driven by the density gradient over the Beer’s law distributed carrier population and is evidenced to be a main reason of the shock interaction in the localized plasma. The frequencies of oscillations observed are 3.5 times larger that the inverse electron transit time in the LT-GaAs slab, suggesting the “ballistic” regime for plasma wave propagation to occur. The oscillations have been observed in the photocurrent autocorrelation measurements. The dynamical electric field at the GaAs/LT-GaAs interface arising due to the instantaneous diffusion of photoexcited electrons inward the material was studied through the transient reflectivity change responses, which have been measured simultaneously with photocurrent.

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  • Received 9 March 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.035328

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Y. D. Glinka*, D. Maryenko, and J. H. Smet

  • Max-Planck-Institut fur Festkörperforschung, Heisenberg Str. 1, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

  • *Corresponding author. Present address: U.S. Army Aviation and Missile RDEC, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35809, USA.
  • Nano and Micro Devices Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL 35899, USA; glinkay@uah.edu

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Issue

Vol. 78, Iss. 3 — 15 July 2008

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