Abstract
We report on the experimental observation of an analog to a persistent alternating photocurrent in an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice. The dynamics is induced and sustained by an external harmonic confinement. While particles in the excited band exhibit long-lived oscillations with a momentum-dependent frequency, a strikingly different behavior is observed for holes in the lowest band. An initial fast collapse is followed by subsequent periodic revivals. Both observations are fully explained by mapping the system onto a nonlinear pendulum.
- Received 20 August 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.085302
© 2013 American Physical Society
Viewpoint
Holey Intrinsic Photoconductivity
Published 19 February 2013
A new experiment reveals the different dynamics of particles and holes in ultracold fermionic gases in an optical lattice, opening the way to investigate condensed matter transport phenomena such as photoconductivity via quantum optical systems.
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