Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of the ultrafast photocurrent process in bulk GaAs. The coherent-control scheme features a pulse shaper and a spatial light modulator. We use the versatility of the setup to create two orthogonally polarized phase-stable femtosecond pulses and manage the shift current density through manipulation of the combined pulse envelope. The behavior of the current induces characteristic terahertz emission patterns that are measured in a standard electro-optical detection scheme. The experimental results are corroborated by a theoretical model that links the behavior of the current density to the pulse envelope.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

Pulse-shaper-assisted phase control of a coherent broadband spectrum of Raman sidebands

M. Zhi, K. Wang, X. Hua, and A. V. Sokolov
Opt. Lett. 36(20) 4032-4034 (2011)

Coherent control of ultrafast shift currents in GaAs with chirped optical pulses

Ana Maria Racu, Shekhar Priyadarshi, Markus Leidinger, Uwe Siegner, and Mark Bieler
Opt. Lett. 34(18) 2784-2786 (2009)

Shaper-assisted collinear SPIDER: fast and simple broadband pulse compression in nonlinear microscopy

Bernhard von Vacano, Tiago Buckup, and Marcus Motzkus
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 24(5) 1091-1100 (2007)

Forty-photon-per-pulse spectral phase retrieval by shaper-assisted modified interferometric field autocorrelation

Chen-Shao Hsu, Hsin-Chien Chiang, Hsiu-Po Chuang, Chen-Bin Huang, and Shang-Da Yang
Opt. Lett. 36(14) 2611-2613 (2011)

Terahertz generation with tilted-front laser pulses: dynamic theory for low-absorbing crystals

Michael I. Bakunov, Sergey B. Bodrov, and Eugene A. Mashkovich
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 28(7) 1724-1734 (2011)